


Turn and Run

by Lagerstatte



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Depression, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, Miscommunication, Prostitution, Self-Hatred, Starvation, Suicidal Thoughts, Survival, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-08 07:25:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 25,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18889936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lagerstatte/pseuds/Lagerstatte
Summary: When Niflheim attacks without warning, Ignis takes Noct and runs.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [egelantier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/egelantier/gifts).



> Alternative title: The One Where Ignis Gets Noct Out
> 
> It's not quite Runaways, but I hope it's still good!
> 
> So many thanks to Gooseberry, my beta <3 everything wrong is now her fault.

The blood on Ignis’ hands was half-dry already, but the movement of his arms as he ran pulled the wound and more blood soaked into his sleeves, hot and sticky. The buildings shook from the attacks.

Noct was dressed in pyjamas, a loose hoodie shoved over his head. His feet were bare. With the white t-shirt stained liberally in Ignis’ blood covering his face, looped around the back of his head, he was unrecognisable.

He’d tried to fight, up until he saw his father cut down in front of him. He’d probably still be fighting, except he was limp and gasping with both stasis and tears. Ignis felt entirely numb. He didn’t know where Gladio, who’d meant to be there to guard Noct, was. He didn’t know why Niflheim was attacking. There were airships, Magitek engines — the Citadel was being razed to the ground. Civilian casualties had to be in the hundreds if not thousands. There had been talk of a peace treaty. Now King Regis was dead, the Wall broken, and the Crystal — broken? Taken? Its power had been removed from both him and Noct at least, and the loss of the armiger felt like a cold void inside his throat, so empty it hurt.

They crawled out through the tunnels and secret ways he and Noct had found as children, when they’d been too young to warp. On the other side of the gardens, out of the Citadel, he could see there were Magitek soldiers, terrifying for their inhumanity, troops of them following human Niflheim soldiers who — from what Ignis can see — were doing something in-between crowd control and mass murder.

People were screaming and crying, and there were dead bodies and blood on the ground. The soldiers were searching the crowds, creating checkpoints at each street corner. They had to be searching for Noct or others escaping the Citadel.

There was no way past them. Ignis tied the bloodied t-shirt a little tighter, hefted Noct onto his back, and ran.

He pushed through the crowd, until he was too close not to be spotted. It didn’t take much acting for his voice to come out panicky and shrill and entirely unlike his own.

‘Help her,’ he said, then louder, shouting above the din: ‘Someone help her!’

They were shoved by the crowds desperate not to get too close to the Magitek soldiers, and they ended up even closer to the human Niffs. Ignis turned to them to try and make eye contact. ‘You have to help her,’ he shouted at them, ragged, the words like sand in his mouth. ‘Please!’

‘Move on!’ one of the soldiers barked at him; with their helmets, he couldn’t tell which. He was shoved hard enough he fell to his knees, overbalanced by the weight of Noct on his back. Then he scrambled back up, and none of the soldiers paid him — or Noct — any attention when he moved through and then past the checkpoint.

He’d assumed they were looking for Noct and wouldn’t pay attention to a woman, much less an injured woman needing help. The fact that he’d been right took his breath away with both relief and fury. He heard shooting from the checkpoint behind him when he was halfway down the street, and he ducked down and ran to the nearest side-street to take shelter there. Noct didn’t respond much as he hitched him tighter and higher, starting to run even when he knew they hadn’t been shooting at them. Better to get away as soon as possible. He thought of whoever they’d just executed and felt sick.

Noct was still in stasis, if his limpness was anything to go by. That was a boon, because Ignis knew that as soon as Noct recovered he’d want to stop and fight and grieve. It was also deeply worrying. Noct should have recovered by now — he should have recovered over an hour ago. Had they done something to him while Ignis hadn’t been paying attention? Was it to do with being unable to access the Crystal? What if he never got better? What if he got worse?

Ignis didn’t know. He didn’t know how to help Noct out of stasis, if it were at all possible. The only thing he’d been taught was to keep Noct safe and comfortable.

He was failing on comfortable; he wasn’t sure if he was failing on safe.

The journey across Insomnia was a long one, roads gridlocked, and when dawn broke Ignis’ bare feet were rubbed raw, his back ached like he’s been beaten, and Noct was still in stasis. There were Magitek patrolling the streets; Ignis knew how to avoid them and did so, kept on edge by the need to listen out for their clanking.

Broadcasts had started playing from the hovering Magitek airships, telling people to stay inside their houses. The broadcasts ran on repeat until the words stuck in Ignis head like insects in honey. It didn’t say that Niflheim were enforcing the curfew with execution by Magitek; the streets were almost entirely empty save for the bodies on the road, all of them dead. Even though he shouldn’t, Ignis checked each person in the hope there was someone he could save. There wasn’t. Several times someone called out from an open door to tell him to come in, to be safe. There wasn’t time to justify why he couldn’t, so he ran and left them behind. He hoped no one tried to follow him and put themselves in danger, but he didn’t look back to check.

He needed to concentrate on Noct. On keeping him alive, on getting him to safety. Everyone else — civilians, his uncle and parents, Gladio, Prompto, the council and the Crownsguard he trained with and trusted and respected — came second. He was so tired his eyes stung, leaking tears that trickled down his face, hot then cold in the chill air. His back felt close to breaking. His arms had gone numb. Avoiding the stamping Magitek was becoming less and less easy. He doesn’t know what he was going to do when they got to the Wall, because the soldiers around the Citadel may have been lax, but there was no chance they wouldn’t check everyone leaving the city if they truly want to catch Noct. The bridge would be occupied. They had the airships to shoot down any boat that tried to cross to the mainland. But if Noct couldn’t leave, neither could he stay. Hiding in Insomnia would be waiting as a fish in a barrel. Escaping into Cavaugh would simply be escaping into a slightly larger barrel.

He didn’t know what to do. Without the armiger they had no weapons. No curatives. They didn’t even have their phones. He should have waited for Gladio to meet them. He’d panicked and ran. He should have found reliable allies, other Crownsguard, Kingsglaive, anyone.

It was impossible. Ignis was carrying the King of Lucis on his back and he was stupid, weak, and defenceless; he was barefoot and stumbling, and he didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know how to protect Noct.

King Regis was dead and Niflheim had taken Insomnia. The Old Wall did not activate and Ignis didn’t know why. Noct was still in stasis and Ignis didn’t know how to help him.

Within sight of the start of the Inner Insomnian Bridge, Ignis stopped by the feet of a dead man whose face was broken in two, the insides of his head pooling out onto the road. Turning, Ignis looked around the empty streets for soldiers. There were none. Had they moved on or where they still close by?

He fell down in front of the dead man, meaning to kneel gracefully but ending up more collapsing. Noct fell from his back before Ignis could stop him, slipping from his cramping hands and slumping, rolling, down onto the pavement. He groaned and curled but did not get up, and Ignis turned to check on him.

His pulse was slow but not too slow. He shoved at Ignis limply when Ignis touched him, face scrunching up beneath the bloody t-shirt in the same discomfort he always showed when in stasis. It had to be that his removal from the crystal’s power was preventing him from recovering. The possibility that he’d never recover so long as he was cut off from the crystal was real and utterly terrifying.

If he knew Ignis was dressing him in the clothes of a newly dead man, he gave no sign. The trousers and shirt replaced his pyjamas, and the hoodie went back on top. Ignis made the motion to take Noct’s bag of laundry from the armiger and sat stupidly with his hand outstretched when it did not appear. Then he held the dirty pyjamas in his fist, turning his head as if to look for a place to put them. It seemed fundamentally wrong to put them by or on the dead man.

He was wasting time. Ignis stood and threw them to the side of the street, then took the man’s socks and shoes, cold and slightly crusty. He put the socks on himself and the white and red trainers on Noct, lacing them up tight because they were a size or two too big. When he heaved Noct back up, feeling him cling weakly to his shoulders and hips, the pain crawled up his feet and ankles, white hot agony, and the socks did nothing at all to help as he started walking again.

The half of the bridge inside the Wall was full of people, perhaps eight or nine hundred. The gate was open and there were what looked like several dozen soldiers blocking them from walking out.

Ignis made his way to them, because his spectacles were smeared and he couldn’t see quite what was happening, and also because what else was there to do? A crowd was the best place to hide in, and the crowd would likely never be larger than it was now. There did not seem to be active violence, though the crowd was clearly tense. Ignis felt like he was walking into a fight without realising it. He wouldn’t be able to use the same trick twice. On his back, Noct stirred.

There were only about forty Niflheim soldiers managing the bridge, armed with guns, and perhaps 200 Magitek soldiers lining the road. In the middle of the road was a huge machine, hulking like the metallic skeleton of a gargantuan, malevolent ape. It was Magitek armour with a soldier piloting it from the inside, Ignis understood in a factual, distant sort of way, but the primitive terror it shrouded his head in was insistent.

To fight without weapons or curatives would be to die in seconds, and Noct to be discovered and most likely killed. To incite the crowd to fight would be instigating the deaths of hundreds of civilians, and pointlessly so if they didn’t win, which they probably wouldn’t. There were no other ways out.

Maybe they should go back. Try and find a safe place to hole up in while waiting for news, or backup, or a plan that wouldn’t get the both of them killed.

‘Hey,’ Noct said, cracked and whispered in Ignis’ ear. Ignis turned his head and opened his mouth to tell him to stop talking, to cover his face back up again, when Noct said: ‘Go closer.’

‘We shouldn’t,’ Ignis said. They were just close enough to see what was happening; to be this close at all was a stupid risk. To be closer would be unforgivable, especially when Noct was revealing his face.

Noct pressed his fist against Ignis’ shoulder blade. The sharp sting of magic bolted through Ignis and hit the road in the rough centre of the Magitek infantry. A ball of bright blue exploded into being, crystal shards and blackness so deep it hurt to look at. The Magitek, including the armour, disappeared into it.

The crowd moved, like a single unit trying to tear itself apart. Ignis was shoved as a woman screamed and pushed to run back into Insomnia, and he only barely managed to keep his feet. Half the crowd went with the woman; some rushed forwards instead. Some remained where they were. The sound of bullets punctured the air for a few seconds, then stopped. The sound of people turned into the singular roar of a crowd, a noise like a skyscraper collapsing.

Ignis clutched Noct to himself as tight as he could and ran.


	2. Chapter 2

The touch of Lunafreya’s hand is cool on Ignis’ forehead.

‘Ignis?’

She’s speaking softly, as if she wouldn’t want to disturb him were he asleep. The thought comes to him that she would know if he were sleeping, and her softness is somehow a trick to get him to lower his guard. Like she were soothing an injured dog, pretending to be like it, belying her strength and powers.

‘Yes, Lady Lunafreya?’

‘Are you still hurting?’

He doesn’t want to say that is he, but he is, and he knows that Lunafreya can make it stop, at least for a while. He turns his head, wincing as pain shoots up his neck, pooling in the back of his skull and in the hollows of his eyes. He doesn’t want help. He wants her to go away.

Eventually, she does.

Later that night Prompto then Gladio come to check on him. Prompto touches his arm and asks if he wants anything to eat, if he’s okay, if he needs anything, and sits with him in silence for a bit. Gladio sighs heavily and leaves after a few moments. Noct doesn’t come at all.

It’s not Noct’s fault. He has to have time to mourn, to accept what happened, to overcome. He deserves time and kindness now more than ever before, and those he can get from Lunafreya. The time he spends not wanting to associate with Ignis will give Ignis time to come to terms with his own failures, and that is a good thing, even if it hurts.

It shouldn’t hurt. He should be grateful they’re staying with him even in his ungratefulness. They should have left him behind and gone on without him.

The next morning Lunafreya greets him and once again asks him if he’s hurting. 

‘Good morning,’ Ignis says, because even though he doesn’t want her touching him he can’t very well ignore her, the Oracle, and the one who saved both him and Noct.

‘How did you sleep?’

Her voice is full of complexities, contradictions, gentle and kind and hard and cruel all at once. She sounds both frustrated and softly, eternally patient, her personality as divine as her powers. Or perhaps it’s just him who’s trying to pick her apart and finding only ink blot tests in the remains.

‘Ignis?’

‘I did not,’ he says, which is partly a lie since he is sure he must have dozed off at least once or twice. He tries to say it neutrally, if not nicely, and he thinks he manages it.

Lunafreya makes a soft sound he can’t decipher. ‘Would you like a drink, then? We have tea… I hear you’re a fan of coffee, but I wouldn’t recommend that until you’re at least a little better.’

She may not be a politician, but Ignis assumes she knows how to handle others better than anyone in the group save himself. Whether or not she is trying to cajole him into letting himself be healed still escapes him. It’s true that he probably should not have strong coffee currently, but it’s also undoubtedly true that Lunafreya wants to heal him.

He doesn’t want her to. He wants to be left alone, to be buried in his shame. He wants to hurt.

‘No, thank you,’ he says.

‘Is there anything else I can get for you? Company, some food, another blanket?’

‘No, thank you,’ Ignis says.


	3. Chapter 3

Using the Ring of the Lucii put Noct straight back into stasis. When Ignis fell to his hands and knees and couldn’t get back up, the brown, gritty Leide rock digging into his skin, Noct slumped too far forward, held in place only because Ignis had tied him there with his own trousers. The material was cutting into his belly and had to be digging into Noct as well, but Ignis’ hands wouldn’t move from where they was propping him up, and he knew if he forced them to he’d only fall.

They weren’t far enough away, not nearly. They’d probably have to cross into Duscae to even start to be safe. There were forests in Duscae, tall trees that could hide them from passing airships. There were — other things, other places and people that could help them, but he couldn’t think of any. All he could think of was trees to hide under, and water. He was thirsty. Duscae had wetlands, lakes, rivers.

Time was passing but he couldn’t get up. His limbs were stiffening, going cold like a corpse’s limbs. Lestallum. He could go to Lestallum in Cleigne, unless they, too, had been annexed by Niflheim. Lestallum was aggressively independent, but what did aggression mean in the face of Niflheim’s strength? It was a dog snarling at a voretooth.

The thought of voretooths made Ignis bend his arms, attempting to get up; it wasn’t safe to just lie here. His arms shook violently, weakness running through them. Lying down without falling felt like an impossible feat of strength, and when he finally managed it he had to lie there, panting, and wait for his arms to become functional again.

It was early afternoon. The sun beat down on him, pressing on his skin like a blanket. Dust and grit stuck to him. Even though it had to be deeply uncomfortable, Noct was not complaining.

The legs of his trousers where he’d tied them together were bound tight, tightened by Noct’s weight, and his fingers were numb and fumbling. If he had his knives he could cut the fabric, only he did not, and besides these were the only trousers he had.

His only pair of trousers and they were tied too tight around his waist to undo. His legs were bare and there was a stone digging into his thigh. He only had one pair of trousers left in all the world, and they were tied too tight around him to actually remove.

It was utterly absurd but it felt like it was breaking him, and he needed to undo the knot before anything else but he couldn’t.

The sun beat down on him and Noct as he curled up and did nothing at all but bite back sobs, aware that he was wasting time. He didn’t know if Noct could hear him or not. He couldn’t stop himself, even if Noct could hear him.

In the end it took shoving Noct up a little for Ignis to be able to wriggle him out of the loop of the trousers, and then slip them off himself, to manage to undo the knot. Life was coming back into his fingers and arms as he dressed, though they still shook, frustratingly weak. He was still desperately thirsty; Noct had to be as well. He’d have to go somewhere to find water. Buy bottled water, because he had nowhere to put water he could get from a tap. Buy food. They had no money. They had nothing to sell.

No. It wouldn’t be that bad. There had to be refugee aid he could access, and he could do manual labour. He knew that almost all rural areas of Lucis suffered encroaching wildlife, from vermin to daemons, and if he could get a weapon or two then surely hunting would be profitable. Noct would have to stay away from settlements and other people because he could not trust just anyone to not sell them out to Niflheim, but Ignis was unrecognisable enough, surely, in the mass of miserable humanity spilling from Insomnia.

Noct would have to stay hidden, but with the Ring of the Lucii he could defend himself. Could he? Once or twice maybe, but if it was taking this long to recover from its use, could he defend himself from two attacks in close succession? There were powerful daemons, even giants. If he was in stasis already then he’d be defenceless.

Perhaps there was somewhere he could stay that was relatively safe. Ignis knew that hiding often worked, because daemons were poor at sensing their prey. If there was an abandoned building, a cave…

He was getting ahead of himself. He’d need to find somewhere to place Noct, make sure he stayed, and go seek out basic attruments at the nearest settlement. He could judge Imperial presence and try to find information. Maybe he could even discover allies who had escaped. Gladio had to have escaped. Surely Gladio, and Prompto. Even if his uncle hadn’t, who wasn’t in the best of health and never fast to wake and rise, Gladio and Prompto would have.

Surely. Surely. Surely it couldn’t just be him.

There were cliffs and outcroppings of rock, all in the same dusty brown. Below where they stood on the shoulders of one of the stone hills was scrubby grass and dust and more rock. In the distance he could see the road, thin and wavering in heat. It connected Insomnia and Hammerhead, and further away Galdin Quay, Cleigne, Lestallum. Galdin Quay would be watched, as the largest port in the nearby area. Lestallum — he didn’t know about Lestallum. Maybe it was already burnt to the ground.

Maybe Gladio and Prompto and his uncle were already dead, and he was only delaying the inevitable. Hunted down like animals, out here in the desert.

Ignis stood on shaky legs and bent to pick up Noct in his arms. Noct stumbled up instead, leaning heavily on Ignis, and swore, but his eyes were still closed. He didn’t seem particularly coherent.

It would be useful if Noct could walk by himself, but Ignis didn’t want him to be coherent. That meant being able to know what happened. Know his father was dead and Insomnia fallen.

The end of the world. The end of their world, at least.

There was a pack of something moving in the distance, five or six beasts perhaps two miles away. Voretooth? Ignis couldn’t see. His spectacles were filthy and he had nothing to clean them on. He’d probably be able to see better without them, but he didn’t have anywhere to put them if he did take them off.

‘Noct?’ Noct didn’t respond, but at least he was up, more or less. They could go further, faster, like this.

Where they were going, Ignis wasn’t sure. Somewhere safe. Safer.


	4. Chapter 4

The Lady Lunafreya, Oracle, Queen of Tenebrae, is more than the sum of her powers. People worship her, protect her, in a way they never will Noct, despite his equal claim to divine power. No one will betray the Oracle, and by all accounts her brother Ravus is protecting her from the inside, so her mere presence means that they don’t need to stay away from settlements. They don’t need to hide, to scuttle around like insects, to starve and hurt and suffer.

Or maybe he and Noct hadn’t needed to, and only had because of Ignis’ misjudgement.

This seems likely. It will be only one more item in the list of ways Ignis has failed him.

They’re camping at a haven. The only reason they’re not in Lestallum is because they judge it too risky to move him, so in many ways he is still holding Noct back. Keeping him brought low when he could rise up. Should rise up. He and Lunafreya together could overpower the very gods.

Ignis’ back hurts again. No matter how he shifts and turns it hurts. He had not been aware he’d hurt his back, but then there are many things he’d clearly been unaware of. The pain throbs, riding on waves. Sometimes it ebbs, and even if it never fully leaves it’s bearable, even forgettable. Sometimes it swells until it’s all Ignis can do to clench his teeth and hope that the stifled noises that escape from between his teeth, thready and pathetic, are not so loud that anyone else can hear.

They’re on a haven. Of course everyone else can hear.

Sometimes he can hear movement around the outside of the tent. He waits for the footsteps to come around to the entrance, for the sound of the zip and the movement of air to tell him someone is standing there, looking at him. He probably won’t be able to tell who unless they say something.

His eyes are ruined even beyond Lunafreya’s powers of healing. If she cannot fix him then he is broken beyond repair.

He wants to be able to see. Even if his blindness is his own fault, caused by his own hubris, his ignorance, his bad judgement. He wants to see. He wants to know that the sight of him, lying limp and useless and unseeing on a bed of second-hand blankets and camping mattresses, is not hurting everyone who stands there in the tent entrance and looks in on him.

He wants to heal so he can be the miraculous recovery that will cheer everyone. Make everyone happy. Fix even just a little part of what’s wrong. He knows they hurt for him. He wants to heal them.

He never will. He’s been broken beyond help, and it’s his own fault.

Around noon, Lunafreya comes in to feed him lunch. Usually it is Gladio or Prompto, but he hasn’t heard them around the haven in a while, and he supposes they’re out on a hunt. In that, he had been correct: hunts are the best way to earn money. With the influx of refugees there is a glut of people desperate for money but with no practical craft, no skills worth anything outside the tech giant Insomnia, nothing to sell. Nothing except themselves. Of course there’d been no money in prostitution.

Hunting, on the other hand, remains profitable. Virtually no one in Insomnia had been trained at killing large animals and daemons, so there’s been no crashing of that economy. Gladio and Prompto go to hunt. Noct must go with them, Ignis supposes, because Gladio would not leave Noct behind. Not after losing him in Insomnia’s fall.

Would Noct leave Lunafreya behind, even on a haven? Even though she is safe from betrayal, from Niflheim, from daemons, she could be attacked by beasts. She has her trident and is skilled in self-defence if not offence, and there are other powers about her, Ignis supposes, that she could wield if need be. There is someone called Gentiana she sometimes speaks to, though Gentiana never replies, or if she does, Ignis cannot hear her. There are Umbra and Pryna, messengers from the Astrals, or dogs, both of which are useful in an attack, even if only to warn of beasts approaching.

Ignis is not useful. He needs to be protected like an infant needs to be protected. He can’t hear Noct on the haven, while he can hear Lunafreya talk to her dogs, or move about, or do things that Ignis cannot identify without seeing. But perhaps Noct is merely staying silent. Perhaps he is out there, with Lunafreya, and he would prefer Lunafreya feed Ignis than to do it himself.

Lunch is bread and soup, with Ignis propped up against something lumpy — what, exactly, he cannot tell, and he can’t bear reaching back to investigate. Instead he sits still and lets Lunafreya feed him. She dips the bread in the soup, but whether it’s because that’s how she prefers to eat her bread and soup, or whether she’s trying to disguise how stale and poor quality the bread is, or some other reason, Ignis doesn’t know.

The soup itself is watery, a disaster of a meat broth. It tastes much like if someone had boiled lean meat with salt for five minutes and then been done with it. The bread is tasteless, formless, turning to mush in the soup and falling apart in his mouth. Lunafreya feeds it to him on a spoon. She must be breaking it up into pieces like someone breaking up bread for ducks.

Halfway through the meal Lunafreya pauses, stirring the soup. Her spoon clacks against the sides of the bowl and she sighs.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says, eventually.

He’s not sure what she’s talking about, so Ignis remains quiet, trying not to shift as his back sends another flare of pain up through his neck and into his skull.

‘They used to give us this as children,’ she says, ‘when we were ill. But I never learnt how to make it myself. I never learnt how to cook at all, I suppose it’s more fair to say. This turned out… ah, well. I’m sure you know what I mean.’

‘I cannot complain,’ Ignis says, which is the only thing he can think of to say. It is clearly insulting, and he thinks he didn’t mean to be, except for the insistent feeling that in fact, he did.

‘That is understandable,’ Lunafreya says with another sigh, this one louder than the last. The spoon clack-clack-clacks in the silence that follows. ‘Would you like to know what the meat is from?’

Once, Ignis understands, he would have loved dearly to know. Now he cannot care. He hates to be fed but he wants her to continue just so it will be over and done and not dragged out, torturously slow. He still cannot bring himself to ask her to continue, or to motion for it in some way. ‘No, thank you,’ he says, and hopes that he sounds dry and humourous rather than brittle and small. He can hear himself — his ears are fine, it seems — and he can hear it’s the latter.

‘Of course.

‘Ignis,’ Lunafreya then says, and her voice is a little stronger, a little more clear. Ignis recognises it immediately, and knows they’re about to have the same conversation as they always do, every day, sometimes twice a day. The themes change but it’s always the same.

‘We were planning on moving soon. Marshal Leonis is calling us to meet him; he has something important to tell Noctis,’ she says.

Clack-clack-clack goes the spoon. Ignis wonders what the bowl is made from. It doesn’t sound like china. Lunafreya has not tried to use his duty to Noct, and his current state of hindering Noct, as a weapon before, but Ignis supposes it had only been a matter of time.

‘You cannot be moved until you’re stable,’ Lunafreya says, and that, at least, is refreshingly direct. ‘We were hoping you’d let me do what I can for you, so we can get going.’

‘It would be easier to leave me,’ Ignis says. ‘There’s a clinic with rooms set up at the Cauthess Rest Area. I would not want to drain your resources that are better spent elsewhere.’

‘We don’t have the money to pay for that,’ Lunafreya says. ‘And the care provided would be subpar to what I can give you.’

She doesn’t argue his point that she needs to save her strength for Noct. He wants to tell her to just leave him on the haven to dehydrate and die as he lay in his own excrement, to be taken by scavengers.

‘Thank you,’ Ignis says, ‘but I would prefer you did not heal me.’

‘I don’t think you understand,’ Lunafreya says, even though it’s abundantly clear to both of them that he does. ‘Noctis needs to leave. By refusing help, you are preventing him from doing so.’

There are things Ignis wants — a lot of things — and out of all of them, he can only have one.

‘It will be better for Noct to leave without me,’ Ignis says, even though he doesn’t want him to. Doesn’t want the way his back starts to seizes up and doesn’t want the sound of Lunafreya placing the bowl down hurriedly, even though she does not touch him. He doesn’t want the way his blind eyes move uselessly in his sockets. He doesn’t want Lunafreya here feeding him soup. He doesn’t want her. He doesn’t want himself.

‘I would like to not be healed,’ he says, through clenched teeth, because his back is alight with cramping pain.

‘I understand,’ Lunafreya says, but Ignis is in too much pain to reply to that. By the time it calms, it takes a long moment for Ignis to realise she’s already gone, the roar in his ears having masked her departure.


	5. Chapter 5

It took five days, but they made it to Duscae. In those five days they hid from the airships passing during the day, holed up in cracks in the cliff-faces and old buildings, single-room sheds with floors so caked in dirt and sand that they might as well have been sleeping outside. Importantly, Noct spent the days recovered from stasis, which set in when he used the Ring of the Lucii at night to defend them from daemons. In the day Ignis sat, exhausted, and his mind ran back and forth, wearing tracks but never reaching anywhere new. He knew that this was by far the best way to avoid Niflheim’s attention, because no one travelled at night, but it was at the same time incredibly risky.

On the first day, still in Leide, Ignis went to get water from where they were handing it out from trucks at the side of the road, refugee crisis aid, and had never missed the armiger more than when he was hauling water back in a large plastic jug, leaving bloody footprints on the dirt paths. He’d thought of asking Noct if he could borrow the shoes, the only pair they had, but then he’d thought Noct should have them in case he needed to run from anything. He regretted it. He regretted only taking water and not waiting several more hours for food, because the idea of leaving Noct alone was terrifying even though Noct had their only weapon. Even when his body refused to let him forget he was hungry, and Noct’s lips were tight and hard. Using magic used calories, and Noct normally ate verociously. He should have been eating voraciously, and could have been, had Ignis not decided against it.

The radio had been playing at the truck, set to an emergency station designed to connect people who had been lost, who didn’t have their family’s contact details, whose family was not responding. Ignis thought about it as he walked; it would be the best way to find any others both in and out of Insomnia, using the pre-assigned aliases and codes they’d been taught in case of emergencies. He hoped that if Gladio or any others were searching for Noct, it wasn’t that the only reason he and Noct hadn’t realised was because they weren’t listening to the radio. He hoped Gladio and the others weren’t dead, or in a cell somewhere, waiting to see what Niflheim decided to do with them.

He drank, and Noct drank, and for a while the water also cooled his hunger. Then it didn’t, but they still didn’t have any food.

Noct kept them safe at night with the Ring of the Lucii, burning the attacking daemons and beasts away into emaciation so extreme their flesh turned in on itself and collapsed into nothing. He and Noct walked in the darkness, or Ignis carried Noct on his back, the water jug, now mostly empty, hung around his shoulders from where he’d tied it with Noct’s hoodie. He wished he hadn’t thrown away Noct’s pyjamas in Insomnia.

On the second, third and fourth days they weren’t near enough to any settlement or refugee aid to have Ignis stop by there, so they sat and rested and did nothing at all. Ignis fed Noct a couple of tomatoes he’d found on the way, not quite ripe, and it was the first time he could remember that Noct willingly ate fresh fruit.

Tomatoes weren’t enough to sustain him, though at least they had some liquid and sugar within them. He thought Noct would make a joke or comment about eating them, but he didn’t, only chewed them up and swallowed them, gulping them down like he were starving.

He wasn’t starving. Not literally, at any rate. It took about thirty days to die of starvation. So long as they had water, Ignis told himself, then any starving they did would be the non-fatal kind. They would not be travelling for a whole month. They would find help, work, money, food, before that. It also meant that Noct could have all of the tomatoes, because if neither truly needed them then Noct ought to have them, if only for comfort’s sake. Noct didn’t look to see Ignis wasn’t eating, so the deception was easy.

They needed money. They had literally nothing save the clothes on their backs and the water jug. If only Ignis could get a weapon of some kind, a blade that allowed him not only to defend himself when away from Noct but also to go on hunts. To defend both himself and Noct so that Noct didn’t have to use the Ring of the Lucii. With a weapon he could also earn money. Buy first aid, clothes, shoes, food, shelter. Security. Comfort. They could get driven out to Duscae instead of having to walk.

The hours they walked blended into each other. Get away from Insomnia. Stay alert for danger. Hold Noct up when he flagged. Try not to think too hard about why Noct was not talking to him as, on the sixth day, they skirted southwards around the gigantic Disc of Cauthess.

He found the patch of green beans while he was walking to Cauthess Rest Area, having left Noct behind to sleep in an abandoned building a few kilometers away. He hadn’t been able to ask Noct if he could take his shoes, and Noct hadn’t offered, so Ignis’ feet were still bare, and he was limping heavily. He wondered what he looked like. No one would recognise him, at least.

Half the beans were good to eat, and half getting old and woody. They were still good, Ignis told himself.

Noct hated beans, even more than he did tomatoes.

He had to be starving, after the sixth day of nothing but a few mouthfuls of what Ignis could scavenge on the way. Hungry enough for even beans. Ignis didn’t pick them, because he had nowhere to put them, no pocket or bag. He’d have to return this way to get them on his way back.

Noct hated beans. Noct was the prince — Noct was the King of Lucis, and he was being dragged around the wilderness in stolen, filthy clothes, starved, used as a magical shield, exhausted, barely recovering from his stasis before the next night came, and with it, the daemons.

The ring itself was incredibly, terrifyingly powerful. Wielding it, Noct destroyed Red Giants, slowly wearing them down until they crumbled into themselves like they were nothing but paper models. His eyes glowed and ashy markings crawled over his skin, burning him up from the inside out.

Ignis wanted to help him. There was no way he could. He had no food to give him, no good news to relieve him with, no bed to lay him to rest in. He was the reason Noct was beyond the help of others, and he knew that Noct knew that, too.

Was that the reason Noct wasn’t talking to him? Or was it grief? Or exhaustion? Was the Ring of the Lucii taking a larger toll on his body than Ignis had anticipated?

He didn’t know. Didn’t know how to do this. No one was going to give him anything for free. He could beg, he supposed. Even the idea of begging brought up a visceral disgust in Ignis’ throat, a physical repulsion he needed to force down. The shame, the explicit publicity of his helplessness and insufficiency.

He would try and find work. He could work deliveries. He could cook, or clean, or mend clothes. Cauthess Rest Area was small but surely they had some work for him.

They didn’t have work for him; no one did. He asked where might have work for him. The man in the diner, where he had circled back after talking to everyone and knocking on every door, shrugged uncomfortably.

‘If you get a weapon you could hunt,’ he said, as he filled up Ignis’ water jug from the tap and heaved it with a great thunk up onto the counter. The clear plastic was stained with brown Leide dust, scratched up. ‘But.’

But he didn’t think Ignis would be able to. Ignis wanted to tell him that of course he could. He was Crownsguard; he had trained since childhood. He couldn’t say that, of course, only stand there stupidly, trying to think of something to say. He could smell food. He was so incredibly hungry, deprived of food in a way he’d never experienced before in his life. He thought of the green beans, and how he hadn’t eaten in days.

‘Look,’ the man said. ‘You’re from Insomnia, right? I... shit, of course I heard what happened. Stay there, I’ll see what I can do.’

Ignis put his head down on the shiny white counter and listened to the man leave. He would leave a mark, he knew, and it would be humiliating, but he was so tired. He was hungry. There was no one in the diner save him, now; it would be incredibly easy to steal food. There was a cabinet with plates of food, pastries and bread. He could steal money from the till.

There was a bottle of tomato ketchup a little way down the counter. Tip it into his mouth, take it and drink it.

He couldn’t. Wouldn’t. If nothing else acting like a savage would destroy any chance he had of getting work.

The man was gone for a long time. It was warm, and he could hear cicadas, and the wind in the trees. It was almost like he were in one of the houses the Crown owned, out in the forests on the outskirts of Insomnia, where Noct sometimes went on weekends to fish. As they got older they got to go just the three of them, him and Noct and Gladio, and later Prompto came along too. He’d cook them banquets and they’d eat and get drunk and lie about to sleep it off, with the cicadas, swallows, and starlings poking around in the grass for insects.

In his memory the grass was soft like silk, and the sun through the spring growth of the trees made the world shine brilliant, dappled green. Above the canopy, outside of the forest, the sky was bright blue; inside it was forest green.

He opened his eyes. The yellow lights of the diner were on, even though it was still bright outside. There were people talking outside, though he couldn’t hear what they were saying. How much time had passed? He shouldn’t leave Noct alone for too long. He still needed to find work.

His body didn’t seem to want to move, much less work. It was easier to sit there, head in his arms, than move. His stomach felt stuck to his spine. He couldn’t stop thinking about the bottle of ketchup, or the pastries. Or Noct, somewhere out there in the desert, where they had found the tracks of what had to be a behemoth.

Noct could kill a behemoth, Ignis was sure. But only if he’d already recovered from stasis, which he hadn’t when Ignis had left him. And even if he had and did manage to kill one attacking him, then what if that meant he hadn’t the magic to fend off the daemons at night?

If they didn’t need to travel they didn’t need to worry too much about daemons. But they couldn’t exactly stay here forever. They needed to go to somewhere Ignis could work at the very least. And if he disappeared at night it would surely cause talk, and talk was the last thing they needed. They needed to try and find Gladio, Prompto, or other Crownsguard. They needed to… go to Lestallum? From what he’d been told Lestallum was still free of Imperial rule. In fact Niflheim was seemingly content to leave the entirety of Lucis alone, save for Insomnia. How much that was true, and how much of it was simply what the news — what Niflheim — was reporting, Ignis couldn’t say.

Could they flee to Accordo? The only feasible way there would be by boat, and that would almost certainly be departing from Galdin Quay. If Niflheim were looking for Noct anywhere, it’d be Galdin Quay.

Maybe they weren’t looking for him. Maybe they were content with their show of military strength and didn’t see any threat in Noct’s legitimate claims to rulership.

Maybe they were searching for him as Ignis lay here, in a Crow’s Nest diner in a miserable ten-building settlement in the middle of nowhere. Maybe they had already found him.

Ignis stood without quite realising he was moving and took a step towards the door. His vision swam, darkened, and tunneled out into blackness. The quiet buzz in his ears drowned out the sounds around him. He thought he was swaying, or perhaps moving in some other way, but it was hard to tell.

His hand was braced against the counter top when his vision returned. Ignis stared at it, unable to remember when he’d placed it there. A head rush. Dehydration. He needed to drink more water, that was all. It was lucky he’d just had the jug filled up, though carrying it back to Noct now would be a trial.

Not a problem. Noct had to drink. He’d just have to be more careful and make sure he avoided anything that might be dangerous.

The man at the diner had told him to wait. People were charitable. Perhaps he was collecting something for Ignis. Money, or clothes or food or other items he could take back to Noct. A phone. Would any of the emergency numbers he’d memorised still work? He doubted it.

‘Hey,’ a man said, and turning his head too quickly made pain spark down Ignis’s neck, made his vision blur for a long second.

‘Look,’ the man said, and it was the same man who’d been at the diner counter. ‘I know it’s not much but here. You got somewhere to stay the night? You can sleep on my couch. The wife doesn’t mind. Are you staying or heading somewhere? I’m sure you could get a lift if you hang around for someone going in the right direction.’

He was holding out a plastic bag stuffed full of items: clothes, and packets of food, and toiletries. The way he spoke reminded Ignis of how inexperienced people talked in front of audiences, when they’d half prepared but not fully. Ignis looked down at the bag, which the man was still holding out to him. He felt distantly sure that if he moved he’d fall apart, except that when he did step forwards and accept the bag, he didn’t. The feeling lingered around the edges of him, though, like deep water.

‘Thank you,’ he said, and even the words felt strange. Perhaps he’d fallen asleep at the counter and hadn’t managed to wake up properly yet. ‘I’m staying with a friend, but — thank you.’

‘Ah, well, glad you got a friend,’ the man said, and it was incredibly awkward, being stared at, though Ignis was sure the man felt equally off balance. ‘Look, you come back here again tomorrow and I’ll have asked around properly. Not many of us here but I reckon we could scrounge a few more things for you. You… that’s all you have?’

It took a moment for Ignis to understand what he was asking. ‘Yes,’ he said, feeling stupid. ‘My friend has… we don’t have anything else. We just managed to get out.’

The man made a sound, sucking in a breath, and looked away finally. ‘Well, damn,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. And look, the doctor’s swinging by here in a few days, so you make sure to come round then to see her. You don’t worry about money for that. She’ll see to you.’

‘Of course,’ Ignis said, even though he didn’t need to see a doctor. Should Noct? But if he needed to stay hidden—

‘Please,’ he said, turning fully as he remembered. ‘There are radio stations connecting people, refugees, those without access to each other…’

He told the man at the diner his alias name, a code name known only to a few trusted Crownsguard, and asked him if could phone the radio station, or write in, or anything, to connect him with his family — Ignis’ desperation was apparently pitiable enough, because the man nodded almost instantly.

‘I’ll give ‘em a call right now,’ he said. ‘And I’ll give ‘em my number so they can call.’

‘Thank you,’ Ignis said fervently, and meant it.

He could tell he was limping, shambling more than walking, as he left. He’d washed himself as well as he could manage in the diner bathroom, and put on the shoes he’d been given, and changed his clothes, and washed his old ones in the sink with hand soap and cold water. He’d have to bring Noct’s clothes to wash tomorrow. At least it was warm, as near to the Disc of Cauthess as they were, so their clothes would dry.

He’d always wanted to see the Disc of Cauthess, before. It had been one of those places, fantastical even in picture or documentary, and visitors always saying how the photos didn’t match up to real life. Now he was here and he barely had the energy to lift his head to look at the arches towering above him. His feet were throbbing in the shoes, painful enough it was tempting just to remove them again. Too small. He should give them to Noct to swap with the too-large ones Noct had currently. The water jug he’d slung over his back, and it bumped against him as he walked, dragging him down.

There was a woman standing by the outside of the shop, watching him. Two men were by the warehouses who Ignis walked past, their dog tags marking them out as hunters. Ignis turned his head to glance at them. They both had guns and knives. He doubted he could get them to sell him anything they owned, but maybe one could lend him a knife? In exchange for… nothing. Charity, maybe. He knew how to use guns, of course, but they weren’t his speciality. With a knife he could take down small prey. Something larger, perhaps, but then he was risking injury, and without connection to the crystal Noct couldn’t make curatives.

He remembered just in time to collect the green beans, and picked them and put them in the bag with the tins of food, a toothbrush and toothpaste, and a bar of soap. Digging further revealed chocolates and a pack of dried fruit and nut mix. Only one shirt, now he was wearing the other, but several pairs of underwear, and thick trousers flecked with paint and chemical stains. The clothes were large, even though the man who had given them to him was smaller than him, at least in height if not at the shoulder. Maybe they’d been someone else’s. Maybe he liked to wear baggy clothes.

When he’d left that morning Noct had been sleeping off his stasis in a small building they’d found, on the edge of what looked like an abandoned farm. He was still there when Ignis returned, still curled up, fast asleep. His eyes were drawn, the skin around them markedly dark in the unhealthy paleness of his face. His lips were bloodless. Occasionally, as Ignis watched, he made small noises that sounded like noises of pain.

He should have asked for a plastic cup, Ignis realised as he sat down on his knees, dragging the water jug off his back and letting it fall the rest of the way to the ground. ‘Noct,’ he said, and reached over to shake him awake.

Noct didn’t wake for several long minutes. Dragging him out of unconsciousness was like trying to claw mud and leaves off wet clothes. The Ring of the Lucii was taking too much out of him — that much was obvious. They’d have to stay put for the time being, and this place seemed as good as any they’d find.

‘Noct,’ Ignis said, ‘how are you feeling? I spoke to some of the people in the rest area. They gave us these. Drink first, then I’ll show you.’

Noct didn’t reply, only pulled up the water jug with shaking hands. He couldn’t seem to lift it high enough to drink from, so Ignis helped him with his hands bracing its base. Noct still got water down his chin, spilling onto his shirt; he drank then took the fresh clothes in silence. He ate without speaking, mindlessly shifting food to his mouth, tinned sausages and green beans alike, and then curled back up to sleep.

Ignis took the empty tins to bury on the other side of the field, not wanting to risk the scent attracting animals. Ideally, he knew, he should move them to a different building and leave the uneaten food behind, tied up to dangle from the rafters, but he knew he’d never be able to bring himself to move Noct now he was sleeping.

He was tired, and he hadn’t eaten himself. His stomach turned at the thought of food. Tucking the spare clothes under Noct’s head, he went to lie in front of the door so that no one could open it without him knowing, and went to sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

His eyelids feel like something has crusted over them. His spine is hardened into a stiff, brittle rod, skull fused on top, and his limbs float away from it entirely. There is something deeply, fundamentally wrong with this, but Ignis finds it hard to grasp.

He can’t understand why they haven’t left yet. Left him yet. If Noct needs to leave then they need to leave, and that means leaving him behind. Why won’t he do it? Why is Gladio letting Noct put off what needs to be done? It seems incomprehensible, unless there is something else they’re all waiting for. Cor, perhaps. Maybe they’re waiting on someone else to be prepared to receive them.

He just wants them to leave. Go away. Stop hovering by his bedside and reminding him of what he should be, instead of what he is. Let him dwell on his mistakes out of the presence of those whom he failed.

Lunafreya sits by him again, and Ignis isn’t sure when she got there. ‘They’re staying in the Cauthess Rest Area,’ she’s telling him. ‘Don’t worry, they’re safe there.’

She doesn’t sound happy about it, though. She carries on talking, frustrated, picking up thoughts then dropping them, sorting through them like rocks. There’s a small, rhythmic tug to the blanket lying over Ignis that must be coming from her. ‘I’m surprised they left us alone, but then, maybe not. We’re safe here too, of course, but I wouldn’t have thought… it’s just Noctis. He’s being… oh, I can’t blame him. He’s grieving. But he needs to step up. What is it that he thinks he’s doing? He needs time, but he doesn’t have it, and he can’t see that. Or perhaps he can? Has he always been like this? Did you have to deal with this?’

Lunafreya sighs and moves, shifting the blankets. ‘What am I doing?’ Then she pauses, and her breathing changes slightly. Her voice becomes more alert. ‘Ignis? Are you awake?’

He’s not sure what he does that informs her, but she moves again. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘Here, drink.’

Something slides under his head, but when it presses up against his skull fire bursts through his body, hot and cold at the same time, and his spine is a sword she’s trying to pull up and out of the wet meat of his body. Then the pressure leaves and Ignis is left gasping, embers piled up inside his head to smoulder.

‘I’m sorry!’ Lunafreya sounds distant, muffled. ‘Is that better? Where does it hurt?’

He’s not sure he knows how to answer, even if he thinks he could, or wants to. ‘Ignis,’ Lunafreya says, and he thinks he’s never heard anyone say his name as softly as she does. ‘Let me heal you. There’s still so much you can do, if you let me heal you.’

What can he do? He is blind, and not only blind but a failure. Even when he had his eyesight he chose wrong at every turn. He let his emotions get the better of him. He was irrational. As an advisor, he is useless. As someone meant to guide Noct, to help him, support him, lift him up, he is useless. What more is left for him?

He is stupid. He is unprepared. He led them into danger. He let Noct be hurt. He used Noct to protect himself at Noct’s own expense. He did everything wrong.

He is in pain. He cannot even move his head without agony searing through him. If he isn’t to be healed then at least let him die to escape this pain.

The emotion that wells up inside him feels stronger than his body can contain. Why is Lunafreya here with him? Why is she not with the people of Cauthess Rest Area, who only have a doctor two days a week? Why is she not with Noct, whom she loves and who loves her?

‘Ignis?’ Lunafreya says his name like it’s an echo. Isn’t she sick of him by now? ‘Can you speak?’

He could, he thinks, if he had to. He doesn’t have to, really, only wait for her and the others to give up on him and leave him behind. Go on without him. Lunafreya is, by the accounts of those who would know best, an extremely intelligent woman, quick on her feet and knowledgeable about politics. She is capable with her trident and other weapons beside. She is loyal and big hearted. She is, apparently, very dogged.

‘I can’t pretend to understand what you’re feeling, or what happened,’ she says, and something very cold brushes the side of his head, tilting it to one side. It hurts, but not as badly as being lifted did, so Ignis allows it without struggling. The rim of a glass presses against his lower lip, but he doesn’t want to drink, so he doesn’t. ‘But please, you have to keep trying. If you don’t want to stay with us, you don’t have to, but I can’t just leave you like this. I can help but only if you want me to.’

He doesn’t want her to. Even though the pain is greater now, he is more sure than ever. Or perhaps because the pain is greater now. Noct is already in Cauthess Rest Area; presumably he, Gladio, and Prompto are preparing to leave. He wants them to go already. Stop dragging it out.

The glass is taken away, leaving his lower lip wet. He licks at it, which makes him realise that he does want to drink, but he finds he can’t say so.

‘Please. Please, I don’t understand. Is it something about me?’

There’s no action he can perform to show her he wants her to leave him alone — he can’t even close his eyes to feign sleep. He lies there instead, limp and motionless, until he hears and feels her move away.

There’s the crackle of fire when he wakes. Ignis listens to it, half sure that it’s the tent that’s burning around him.

‘Hey, Iggy.’ For a split second Ignis thinks it’s Noct, and the disappointment that comes when he realises it’s Prompto is both crushing and shameful.

A gentle pressure lands on his chest and rests. ‘I dunno what happened but I just…’ He takes a long breath in. ‘Is there anything I can do? I don’t know what happened and Noct won’t say, but we’re all needing you back, buddy.’

If they’re all expecting some secret that he’s hiding, they’re going to be disappointed. 

‘Are you all well?’ Ignis asks. They’d been on a hunt and they have no curatives. Then again Lunafreya can heal, can she not?

‘Oh, us?’ Prompto laughs, not very convincingly. He sounds like he hadn’t expected Ignis to talk. ‘Yeah, we’re all good! We went after garula. It was, uh, kinda sad actually. They let us get right up to them. They were so tame.’ He trails off, and that is genuine, at least.

‘I’m glad you’re unharmed,’ Ignis says, aware of how awkward he is making it but needing to say it anyway. Talking is making his neck hurt, but he doesn’t want Prompto to fall silent and go away. Doesn’t want to be left in the dark and silence again.

‘I heard there’s a chocobo post nearby,’ he says. Even if they haven’t been to it, surely Prompto will have something to say about it.

‘Chocobos! Oh, dude. Wiz’s Chocobo Post. We passed it on the way down, but it’s actually closed. I was talking to some guy in the Cauthess rest place and he was saying there’s a behemoth that means they can’t let the chocobos out. But you know,’ Prompto says, ‘with the four of us, we could probably take it down. Free the chocobos! Why wouldn’t you want to do that?’

Prompto’s voice breaks by the end, cracked with uncertainty. Ignis doesn’t know how to respond to it.

He is blind. He can’t hunt behemoths. He can’t even ride a chocobo.

‘I’m sorry,’ Prompto says, after it becomes obvious Ignis has no reply. His voice comes out like a small animal, afraid of being ambushed. ‘I’m sorry, I just… could you tell me what was going on? And maybe I can help?’

What was going on? Ignis is blind and useless, and Noct needs to leave without him. What more is there to it? It is Noct who is dragging his feet and not allowing them all to move on.

‘I’ll be fine,’ Ignis says, and he would have reached out to touch Prompto’s arm, only he doesn’t know where Prompto’s arm is. Groping around for it would be unbearable, and also the tight threat of pain in his shoulders and spine tells him to stay still.

‘Dude,’ Prompto says, ‘hate to break it to you, but you’re not fine. Pretty sure you’re really not fine.’

That hurts, unexpectedly, but is undeniably true. He is blind, and not only blind but proven to be an active hindrance to Noct even when sighted. He just hadn’t expected Prompto to go ahead and say it.

‘You should encourage Noct to carry on,’ Ignis says, and swallows away the hitch in his voice. Just speaking hurts. Breathing hurts. ‘He is the king now. He needs to lead, not stand still. He’s going to need you by his side.’

‘Yeah, no,’ Prompto says. ‘He needs you.’

There are a lot of things to say to that. Dozens come into Ignis’ head, from cutting to gentle, a lifetime of diplomacy shoving its way forward and demanding to be put to use. Prompto isn’t a politician, though. He’s a friend. He deserves better than anything Ignis can say to him.

‘I’m sorry,’ Ignis says. He means it, but he doesn’t know how Prompto will hear it. That’s out of his control; he’s done his best. Suddenly, he wishes that Prompto weren’t there with him after all. Having Prompto sit by him only makes the other, conspicuous absence only the more apparent.

‘I don’t get what you’re saying.’ Prompto isn’t going away. ‘If you want to be left then you can, but just let Luna heal you first. She can do it. No one knows why you’re not letting her.’

He would turn his head away, but it would hurt too much. He would close his eyes, but he isn’t entirely sure how to, or even whether they are already closed. He knows Lunafreya can heal him. He doesn’t want her to. He doesn’t want it. He doesn’t deserve it. Doesn’t need it.

Just the thought of her healing him sends panic trembling through him. His heart starts to beat faster. He doesn’t want it. She can’t. She won’t, he is mostly sure, but how can he tell? How can he trust her?

He hurts. He’s no use. He just wants to stop.

Prompto leaves. Ignis wants to shut his eyes and go to sleep, but both seem like abstract desires, not actually achievable in the same way growing wings and flying away is unachievable. What time is it? Is it night, or day, or somewhere inbetween? Where is everyone?

He is drifting, not truly real. The tent and the haven and Noct are all somewhere else, and Ignis is only lying there, thinking of them, in pain. The pain continues through everything. He wants to stop. Stop everything.

‘Ignis.’ Gladio’s rough voice comes with him lifting Ignis up. He doesn’t stop when Ignis tenses up with agony, but he does slow. Something touches Ignis’ lips once he is partially lifted, hard and small, pressing at them annoyingly. ‘You need to drink.’

The thing will not go away. Is it a straw?

‘So you’re just giving up, then?’ Gladio says. ‘You fuck up once and that’s it, game over? You think you can just leave us behind like that? Leave Noct? You’re meant to die doing your job, like your uncle and my dad died doing theirs.’

Ignis doesn’t know what kind of answer he wants. He isn’t entirely sure what Gladio is saying at all.

‘I believed in you. I thought you were strong enough for anything. But you’ve given up, like a fucking coward.’

Trying to twist away would be futile. He already knows trying to fight would be laughable. He might as well try to fight the darkness crawling over him, pressing against his face like a bag slipped over his head.

‘Noct needs you. I need you. Fucking get up.’

Noct. Ignis is sure that before — some nebulous, undefined before — he would have done anything for Noct. Now he is — he’d tried — he’d thought he could give everything to Noct, but he can’t. He hasn’t managed to give him anything at all, except painful failure and ruining himself in the process. What would getting up achieve?

He doesn’t want to get up, when moving hurts this much. Doesn’t want to fail even more than he has already.

Gladio puts him down and goes away. The darkness pushes up against Ignis’ sides like baby animals seeking warmth.

Now, Ignis supposes as he lies there, it is Lunafreya’s turn.

She takes her time. The sounds of people filter in through the dust and tent, coming and going. Ignis’ heart beats hard in his ears, and he feels too hot then too cold, fluctuating like desert day and night. Each hot-cold cycle isn’t a full day, surely? No, it can’t be. His body shakes, drenched in sweat, but soon he knows he’ll be burning up. Every joint aches. There isn’t any way he can lie that does not hurt.

When he does hear Lunafreya he can’t seem to understand her any more. What she is saying doesn’t make any sense, and she doesn’t seem to wait for him to reply before speaking again. She sounds agitated. She is speaking fast, and it sounds like it ought to be loud but is in fact quiet.

It takes a long moment of puzzling it out to realise she isn’t speaking to him at all, but to someone else outside of the tent, though their voice is too quiet to make out.

‘I know you told me!’ she says. ‘What use is that when he’s the one who needs to hear it? — what do you mean? No you haven’t! I was there and he was unconscious, Gods slay us all; you might as well have written him a letter and posted it to Insomnia!’

‘Luna—’ That, unmistakably, is Noct.

‘I’ve tried, Noctis. I’ve tried everything I know. Prompto and Gladio have tried, but he’s getting worse. He’s going to die, and it will be your fault.’

‘He’s not going to die.’

‘Isn’t he? Look at him. When was the last time you actually looked at him?’

‘He’s not—’

‘Damn you, Noctis. I love you, but damn you.’

Noct doesn’t say anything to that, or perhaps he does, but it’s too quiet for Ignis to hear. When Lunafreya speaks next it’s through the murmur of indistinct words, insensible over the sound of blood thumping in Ignis’ ears.

He remembers arguing with Noct. Countless arguments, because Noct was stubborn and weighed down by his duties. Depression grew on him like mould. Ignis knows with exquisite intimacy the frustration in Lunafreya’s words: _I love you, but damn you._

Noct has someone there for him. Someone to replace Ignis. That is fine. At least she loves him.

Ignis drifts back to unconsciousness.


	7. Chapter 7

Night passed on the seventh day, and while Ignis heard daemons passing outside the walls of their abandoned building, none of them managed to smell them out, see them through the window, track them down and find them. While Ignis sat and listened, acutely aware of the lack of anything he could use as a weapon, Noct drifted, dozing as he jolted and woke, groaning quietly when he shifted to ease the clear pain in his body, then slipped back to sleep. 

The decision to stay for the night instead of travelling on had been the correct one, Ignis knew. Noct needed to rest desperately. Even though he hadn’t used magic since the previous night he still seemed to be at least partially in stasis. Every motion was slow and pained. He had trouble responding to Ignis, and moved only when absolutely necessary. He didn’t want to speak to Ignis, or even acknowledge his presence.

To some degree, Ignis knew he was grieving. But there was more to it than that. He was in pain yet not seeking comfort. He wasn’t asking what they were doing, questioning his judgement or seeking further information, just numbly accepting what Ignis told him.

There was something more wrong, and Ignis had begun to understand that it was his own fault.

He’d been the one to drag Noct out of the citadel. He’d taken Noct out of Insomnia. He hadn’t waited or searched for backup or help. Instead of finding a weapon to use himself and defend the both of them, he’d used Noct, to Noct’s own detriment. And now Noct was hurting, starved and exhausted. He was mourning the death of his father and who knew whom else, because Ignis hadn’t been able to get reports of who was dead and who’d survived. Noct hadn’t had the opportunity to object, only been carried along on Ignis’ plans that were falling apart further and further each day.

The realisation, once achieved, couldn’t be lost. Ignis lay in front of the door and even though he mustn’t have had more than four or five hours of sleep in the past forty-eight, he couldn’t manage to even close his eyes. There was a window on the other side of the room from where Noct was sleeping, and the moonlight meant that the outside was well lit. That had been a blessing on previous nights, but now Ignis couldn’t stop watching the blank frame of the window and waiting for a daemon to come peering in.

He’d made a lot of mistakes. He couldn’t have known whether staying would have led them to be caught, but surely they could have tried to find others before leaving Insomnia. Definitely before leaving Leide. He’d panicked but that wasn’t an excuse when his job, his life, was to guide Noct. Help him. Advise him. Support him, not use him as a weapon, chipping bits off him as he wielded him blindly and with zero expertise.

And — and now what? They were stuck. Should he take Noct to Cauthess Rest Area, if only so they could rest easier? But what if there were Imperials there? People came and went, and unknown faces wouldn’t raise suspicion. People were poor and a bounty from Niflheim could rebuild the whole settlement three times over, bigger and better each time.

He didn’t know. Here they were uncomfortable and on edge, but at least they were alive. They could be comfortable in Cauthess Rest Area, but that way could lead to death.

Staying out here could lead to death, too. Daemons were just as dangerous as Niflheim.

Ignis blinked, eyes gritty, watering. The window frame remained blank. He’d ask Noct what he wanted. Discuss the problems and decide together. Noct would know best what he felt was possible with the Ring of the Lucii, whether it was realistic to imagine they could keep living this way or not.

The stars were up but not visible through the dust stained window. Outside he could hear the groan and thundering footsteps of a giant.

When dawn broke, Noct was fast asleep. He woke up as Ignis was washing outside, and Ignis came back inside to see him with his eyes pressed deliberately closed in obvious wakefulness.

‘Noct,’ Ignis said, ‘good morning.’

Noct ignored him, and Ignis stood looking at his curled body, seeming so small on the empty floor. The confidence of his decision to talk things over started to crumble away. It wasn’t Noct’s job to fix what he’d messed up.

The air was cold on his damp skin. Ignis knelt by the bag he’d been given and fished out a chocolate bar. It wasn’t one Ignis had seen before in Insomnia; the bright red and yellow packaging proclaimed it packed with delicious toffee chunks and smothered in milk chocolate. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘You should eat this.’

He was met with silence, but at least he had some experience in this, if in a different setting. Opening the packet he went and knelt by Noct, putting the bar by his hand. ‘Try to eat,’ he said, and touched Noct’s shoulder, firm but not hard. ‘I’ll get you some water in a moment.’

If only he had better food; Noct was picky but not out of choice. Normal life had his diet heavily regulated in order to give him enough calories, protein. He carb-loaded for extended training sessions. Certain food textures made him gag while depression killed his appetite. It was small wonder he was struggling to cope with eating now.

Noct had to, though. No doubt the lack of food was making his recovery from stasis even worse than it would otherwise be.

Later, when Ignis had finished washing and brushed his teeth — there was only one toothbrush, so he and Noct had had to share, once he’d pressed Noct into actually brushing his teeth — he left Noct to rest some more while he returned to Cauthess Rest Area. Maybe there would be new people, hunters, who had something for him to do. He had Noct’s dirty old clothes, the clothes he’d taken from the dead man, to wash.

It occurred to him that not only would the man’s family have to suffer his death, they’d have the added insult of him having been stripped, too. The thought was like a needle too close to his eye; he shied from it, and forced himself to pay attention to his surroundings only.

There were wild beasts, but the route into the settlement was cleared of forest, which allowed him to avoid danger. He wondered when the farm they were staying on had gone out of business, been abandoned. Whole swathes of Lucis’ non-Insomnian industries had been lost as territories had been given over to Niflheim. Perhaps this had been one of them. Or maybe it had been increased animal or daemon activity which had driven away farm hands, had cut off supply routes. Or maybe it had been something else entirely.

The way in took about an hour, and would have been half that had he not been limping still, dizzy with hunger. He hadn’t eaten anything, only drank, and maybe he should have. But Noct needed the food more, and it was better to leave him with as much choice as they had. Ignis could probably get food in the rest area. The water jug bumped against his back, annoying rather than painful now it was empty.

He went to the diner first, because the man there had been sympathetic, and also because he wanted to ask for a disposable cup and to refill his water jug. There was also the bathroom where he could wash more properly than he had that morning. He wished he had a comb; his hair was tangled and filthy. He needed to shave.

‘Morning,’ the man at the counter said. He looked nervous, but in a self-conscious sort of way and not, Ignis hoped, that he thought Ignis was going to become violent, or turn out to be a thief or conman.

‘Good morning,’ Ignis said, generic pleasantry rolling off his tongue effortlessly. ‘May I use your restroom?’

‘Of course, of course,’ the man said, and Ignis hoped he wouldn’t introduce himself, because that would mean Ignis would then be obliged to also introduce himself, and a fake name would be another detail, another thing to go wrong in the lie he was trying to maintain.

Inside the bathroom Ignis washed his hair with hand soap, and the water as it ran down the drain was brown and gritty. Ignis wrung his hair out as best he could, scraping it down against his scalp to press the excess water out. The soap stank and water dripped down Ignis’ neck to soak his shirt collar, but at least he felt half-way clean. He drank from the tap so he wouldn’t have to ask for a glass of water.

Back in the seating area of diner, he noticed a man and two women sitting together and eating. The women he recognised from the day before, the man he didn’t. Had they been there before, and he simply hadn’t noticed them? He couldn’t have spent so long in the restroom that they’d come in, been seated, and served, but the alternative that he just hadn’t noticed them was frightening.

He was losing his touch. Or perhaps he’d never had it to begin with, and would always have failed in any practical application of his job.

‘Alright, so,’ the man at the counter said. ‘You eaten?’

The idea of wasting time eating was repellant. ‘Yes,’ Ignis said, on reflex. ‘Thank you for your charity.’

‘Oh, you’re welcome,’ the man said, smiling awkwardly, over-eager. ‘I emailed your message to the radio, and I’ll keep an eye and ear out for a response for you. But for now, look, I asked around and there’s not much work still, but there’s a delivery round at the Mini-Mart this afternoon and Sam could use someone to lend a hand. She can pay. Not much, but she won’t cheat you.’

‘Afternoon?’

‘They’re expecting it ‘bout two but could come earlier, could come later. Never know with these things.’

‘Of course,’ Ignis said. ‘I suppose I should go around and introduce myself.’ It occurred to him as he said it that he wouldn’t need to as he’d already met the woman at the Mini-Mart, who was presumably Sam. The embarrassment of having said the wrong thing was a dull blow, tightening in his throat and ringing in his ears.

‘You do that,’ the man said, putting his hands on the counter then taking them away again. ‘Swing round here for lunch and dinner, I’ll fix you something.’

‘Thank you,’ Ignis said. ‘I truly am grateful.’

The man kissed his teeth. ‘What the Niffs did to Insomnia — it’s the least I can do, kid.’

Just hearing the name of his city hurt. Ignis tried to smile, but from the man’s reaction he knew he hadn’t succeeded.

Sam was an older woman, with grey hair and a bent back, and she told him that the delivery was due 2pm sharp and he needed to come back then, and not before.

That was over four hours away. He could ask around to make sure no one needed help, or he could leave and go back to Noct. Keep him company. Keep him a little safer. Encourage him to eat.

He was tired. He should reserve his strength for work, and in case something did happen and he needed to fight, if only with his fists. But Noct—

He’d carry the water back, with the glass, so Noct could drink. Maybe he could beg a bottle of water to take with him, pay them back later, so that Noct could have water throughout the day. That would be good.

When he asked, Sam gave him a big bottle and a plastic bag to carry it in. She didn’t say anything about paying for it — whether she’d be taking it out of his wages, or if it were charity, Ignis didn’t know. He decided he was too proud to ask — that he had to have pride in something even if it were meaningless — and left to walk back to Noct.

The same hunter as before, still standing by the warehouses like he grew there, called out to Ignis as he passed: ‘Hey look, it’s human after all. Scrub up did you wonders, kid.’

Ignis ignored him, mostly because of not quite understanding that the hunter was speaking to him for the first moment, then not quite parsing the words for the next. Anger rankled through him then, but he pushed it down. He didn’t need to start a fight here, or garner more attention than he was already getting. He just needed to get to Noct.

He didn’t have a watch or phone, or any other way of telling the time, but the journey back felt far longer than the one there. If he had a watch he’d have sold it by now, he thought, and possibly made a very decent amount of money. Or been attacked, mugged, the watch stolen from him. The water dragged him down. His feet hurt and hurt and hurt, a little more with each step. Several times Ignis had to stop to rest, and each time he turned and checked to make sure he wasn’t being followed. His own breathing was harsh and loud. He might not be able to hear anything sneaking up on him. Following him to Noct.

Knocking on the door of their hideaway gave no response from inside. 

Inside, Noct was still asleep — either that, or doing his best impression of it. The chocolate bar from earlier was eaten, the wrapper left on the ground by Noct’s head. Ignis left the bottle of water by his head and then sat down outside, in the shade by the side of the building, wondering if he could manage to fall asleep for a couple of hours and not risk missing the delivery and his only opportunity for honest work.

What should he buy with the money? It depended on how much he was getting, but — food, obviously, and water purifiers. A phone. First aid. Camping and survival equipment. Clothes, toiletries. Blankets or a sleeping bag of some kind. A weapon to defend himself with, when travelling without Noct. A bag to carry everything in.

Food was only a priority if they moved on or could not rely on the charity of the people living here. While the man in the diner seemed willing to feed them, he couldn’t guarantee it. Food would help Noct recover from stasis more quickly, and thus help in defending them both. Water purifiers were an absolute necessity if they needed to move away. A phone was required to seek contact with whoever had been spat out of Insomnia, as well as would be vital for making contact with whoever might take them in from Accordo. First aid would be valuable in treating minor injuries, and preventing them from worsening. There was no point in hiding Noct from Niflheim only to have him succumb to blood poisoning from scraped knees, but the man at the diner had indicated that the doctor there would see them for free. It was currently warm enough they didn’t need to build a fire, but items such as a hatchet and fire starters would be required to cook with, and a sewing kit, a knife, a flashlight...

A phone would be top priority. Food and first aid after that. After that, survival gear, and then lastly the things to keep them more comfortable.

‘Noct, I’m going back now,’ he said, once he deemed it probably noon or close to it. ‘They said they have work for me. Did you want me to buy anything specifically?’

Noct didn’t reply. Didn’t move at all. If it hadn’t looked so close to how he had been, several years ago, when his depression had been at its height, he would have gone in and tried to shake him awake.

The walk back to Cauthess Rest Area was uneventful. There were wild animals in the distance, but nothing seemed to notice him, and Ignis was fairly sure he could outrun anything, given he had enough warning. The road was hard, and it was dry, hot. He could feel himself burn. His head span; he tried to drink more, wet his clothes down, button up his shirt so the least amount of skin was exposed, but it didn’t help too much.

The work in the shop was similar, in a sense. The warehouse the delivery was being dumped into was baking hot, like an oven. Ignis’ head went light and stayed that way, and when he tried to lift any box too quickly it sent him dizzy, sometimes forcing him to put it back down again so he could stop and stifle back retches.

Sunstroke? He’d have to be more careful. Travel only in the mornings and evenings, and rest in the shade when he could. He needed to drink more water. He half desperately, deliriously craved for Ebony, and half was sure that if he did drink any he would be violently sick.

Sam paid him in a wad of grubby notes after he got everything into the back room of the shop and unpacked the majority of it. ‘Come back tomorrow and you can do stock-take,’ she said. ‘Shop’s closed but go ahead and grab what you need.’ Ignis nodded, hoping she couldn’t see his limbs shaking, the sweat on his skin and soaking into his clothes, and didn’t question the amount she was giving him. He had no idea how much this sort of work was paid in Insomnia, let alone out here.

It was 6pm. The sun would set in two or three hours. He should go buy what they needed and get back quickly, if he wanted to be safe.

The Mini-Mart was the only shop, excluding the trailer outside that sold weapons. How the entire community managed to survive off just its limited stock, Ignis wasn’t entirely sure. Did they order in deliveries specifically? Go to Lestallum to do their monthly shopping? He picked up a rucksack and went to browse what little was there.

He came away with mostly food and first aid equipment. The larger items of survival gear were too pricey once he’d already bought a prepaid phone, and there was no way he’d be able to buy a weapon. At least they already had two changes of clothes and several pairs of underwear, second-hand though they were.

He’d given the number of his new phone to Sam. Then he’d turned his phone off, partly to save battery and partly so it would be harder to track him by it. Had that been the right thing to do? He touched his pocket where the phone, cheap, ugly, and unresponsive, sat. If Sam had his number then she could get in contact with him if she had work. She could pass messages to him from the man at the diner, if he heard anything back from the refugee crisis radio station.

Niflheim could find him and track him, and use Sam and everyone who had helped him to do so. He was putting them all in danger.

‘Hey,’ a voice said, and Ignis startled, turning to find the same hunter who’d been watching him leave the last two times. ‘You’re heading out late.’

‘Did you need something?’ Embarrassment at being caught off guard coloured his voice with hostility, but just from the sight of him Ignis knew hostility wasn’t uncalled for. He thought if he were a dog his hackles would be up, bristling.

The hunter laughed, shoving off the wall of the warehouse and coming closer to Ignis. He smelt like cheap soap. His hair was buzzcut short and he had several scars across his face and neck, pale in his tanned skin. ‘Heard you’re looking for work.’

‘I am,’ Ignis said, even though he knew from the hunter’s expression what he was after. He should walk away, say nothing, gather the trailing ends of his pride and leave.

‘Sweet,’ the hunter said, and he was grinning, excited but not really confident, like a kid with false bravado. ‘I’ll give you 200 gil to suck my dick.’

200 gil — it seemed like nothing, but then it’d be enough to buy several day’s worth of food, plus a hatchet and blanket. Enough to buy a pair of daggers. He could bargain. Could he? There was every change the man was trying to take advantage of his ignorance and desperation.

‘200 too cheap for your pretty lips?’ the man said, picking up confidence, and Ignis’ jaw clenched at his loudness. To be heard prostituting himself — humiliation hurt worse than his worn out, bleeding feet.

‘How about you offer again, and I’ll pretend I didn’t hear the first time,’ Ignis said, even though it was useless, because there was no way he could have the upper hand in the bargaining when he was the one selling himself. The widening grin of the hunter just proved it.

‘Nah, you heard me. Whores here are cheap. I’m offering you charity,’ he said, and circled around Ignis until Ignis was between him and the last, empty warehouse. ‘Want it or not?’

‘Fine,’ Ignis said, because money was money, and what was he losing, anyway? A few minutes of his time? Sex wasn’t sacred. His body was there to be used. ‘But I want payment upfront.’

They went behind the warehouse rather than inside it, and the man gave Ignis 100 gil and laughed again when he saw Ignis counting it out. ‘I’ll give you the rest when I come down your dirty throat,’ he said, and shoved Ignis onto his knees, back against the rough warehouse wall. The sun was in Ignis’ eyes, and he squinted until the man stepped up close enough to block it out.

He couldn’t tell if his inexperience was a good thing or not — whether he ought to be pleased he was going to do a poor job for poor pay, or ashamed, because lack of sexual ability was laughable in near every scenario. He didn’t have time to dwell on it, because the hunter had his cock out, stroking its flaccid length roughly in one hand and gripping the back of Ignis’ head with the other.

It smelt, almost overpoweringly so, musky and sexual. The taste was similar, and the soft fleshiness of the cock in his mouth made him gag almost immediately. Trying to push back and away, hands on the hunter’s hips, he found himself too weak. The hand on his head crushed him forwards and the cock swelled and hardened on his tongue.

The hunter didn’t seem too interested in deep-throating, though Ignis wasn’t sure if that was because his gag reflex was on a hair trigger. He was thankful, anyway. The taste had mostly gone, replaced by the neutral, invisible taste of Ignis’ own saliva. The man’s cock wasn’t too long, and his grip in Ignis’ hair didn’t yank too hard, so long as Ignis kept up with the rhythm of his thrusts.

He could focus on the feel of stones beneath his knees, or the way his heels bumped into the warehouse as he rocked. Focus on the movement of his tongue and not the rough brush of pubes against his nose, the smell, the difficulty of breathing making the floor spin beneath him. Even with his eyes open he couldn’t see much. Was he going to faint? That would be humiliating, he managed to think, but also dangerous. He might not get the last 100 gil. The hunter might take back the 100 gil he had already given Ignis. Take any of the things Ignis had bought. It would mean Ignis might not get back before sunset.

Pulling back and gasping for air only made the hunter grab him with both hands around his head, yanking him back at the same time as thrusting forwards. The head of his cock pushed against the back of Ignis’ throat, then down it, suffocating, painful as the hunter’s thrusts turned short and sharp, down Ignis’ tight throat, distending it—

The hunter came with a groan, and Ignis fell forwards onto his hands and knees, and threw up.


	8. Chapter 8

Ignis wakes to magic running through his body. It’s entirely unlike Noct’s magic — unlike the magic of the crystal, the Lucian royal line. His body is alight with it, alive with it—

His arms flail as he struggles into wakefulness. He hits someone, and the magic stops.

He’s alive. He’s been healed. Lunafreya healed him.

‘What did you do?’ he says as he sits and rolls away from her, tangled in the blankets, closed in by the walls of the tent. He’s still blind, and the sudden movement pulls in bright agony that bends him over, makes him gasp and cough and retch.

‘I’m sorry,’ Lunafreya says, somewhere on the other side of the tent, or possibly outside it. ‘I’m sorry, Ignis, but I had to — Noctis—’

Then, absurdly, she bursts into tears.

They both recover without saying anything more, each on their own end of the tent. Ignis manages to uncurl himself, breathing hard, trying to swallow down the aftershocks of pain still stuck in his body like needles. Lunafreya stops crying in increments, and her sobs subside into breathy tears, which fade into wet sniffles. The atmosphere in the tent feels comforting, almost, Lunafreya’s tears stripping her of her untouchable divinity and turning her human.

He assumes, given the noise the two of them must have made, that they are alone. Gladio and Prompto are gone with Noct. Noct is with them, somewhere that isn’t here. Somewhere without Ignis.

A wall breaks in Ignis, as if now he is healed he finally has the strength for it. The agony and delirium that had covered him like a fog is lifted, and death is no longer tempting purely for its release from it, and nor is it an option.

More than that: he realises that he is alone, and he doesn’t know where Noct is. He realises that what he’d wanted before was to be left to die, to fade away, to stop having to acknowledge his pain and failure. Lunafreya has taken that from him, unless he sees fit to shame his family with suicide. He doesn’t want to be left behind to live. He wants to be with Noct. He wants to be beside him, with Gladio and Prompto. He doesn’t want to be in pain; blind; unable. He wants to see. Wants to go, leave the tent, be with Noct.

Lunafreya touches him. Ignis flinches from her, but she doesn’t heal him further, even though she must be able to. She lets him flinch away, and in doing so she disappears back into the blackness of the rest of the world. Her breath trembles with something that might be a laugh, or might be an unstable sort of sob.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says. Her voice wavers but doesn’t break. ‘But I don’t regret it.’

What does she want from him? She can’t heal his eyes. She’d told him that when he first woke, when she’d spent all night trying to fix the ruin of his broken, bleeding, infection-ridden body. But she won’t let him die.

‘Why did you do it?’ Before, he’d been content to be left behind. Content to be left to die. Now he’s aware, he knows he doesn’t want it, but he still can’t stay with Noct. This is worse.

‘For Noctis,’ Lunafreya says, and her conviction shames him, utterly and entirely. He had, once, been that person who had loved Noct unconditionally. Who would have done anything for him.

Why isn’t he any more? Had that not been the definition of him?

He can’t. He is blind. He has failed at everything he’s meant to be. But if he can’t walk, why can’t he crawl after Noct? If he can’t advise, why can’t he simply be there?

But he can’t drive. He can’t cook. How can he look after Noct if he is blind? Will Noct trust him again to make any decision?

How will he know if he never asks Noct?

Noct would have told him, if he’d truly wanted him to stay.

Would he have?

‘Where is he?’ Ignis says, struggling to keep his head above the waters of his confusion. He is unmoored, sightless, and he can’t find shore. His body won’t obey him as he tries to tread water.

‘He’s meeting with Cor. They’re at Wiz’ Chocobo Post, actually. They thought — well, they weren’t saying it in so many words, but Gladio and Prompto were thinking it would be easier for you to ride than walk.’

There’s a defiance to her words, like she wants him to contradict her. Her defiance sounds like cruelty. He doesn’t know whether blind people can ride chocobos.

The question itself is ridiculous. He can’t bring himself to answer it. He doesn’t know what he wants.

It would have been easier to let him die. He wishes Noct had never found him that morning, and he’d bled to death in the road. He thinks he wants to live and be with Noct. Will he still want that in the future when his uselessness has been cemented in the eyes of everyone? Will he want it when Noct does not want him? If Noct doesn’t want him, Ignis thinks he will hate Lunafreya for saving him. Deciding she knows better than him, and taking his own death away from him.

‘He doesn’t know what he’s doing,’ Lunafreya says. It’s a non-sequitur, but they both know whom she’s talking about. ‘He would have left it until it was too late, so I made the decision for him. For you. I know it goes against everything I ought to stand for, but Noctis — it would have killed something in him to lose you. He would have let you die, and I love him too much to allow him to do that.’

She’s silent for a moment, then she adds: ‘I didn’t know what else to do.’

Her honesty is painful, because he can’t refuse its truthfulness. ‘How is he?’ he asks instead, because to talk about him like this is to say he is at his most vulnerable.

‘He is hurting,’ she says, wielding her honesty like a weapon, or perhaps a needle and thread, very precise. ‘He never had the chance to grieve. The Ring of the Lucii caused him great pain, both physically and mentally. I have done what I can to heal his body, but even I can’t begin to understand the magic his family possesses. His father is inside the Ring, I think. Putting it on is not just to take its magic, like you take the Crystal’s.’

What can he say to that? He was the one who forced Noct to use the Ring. He hadn’t known, but he should have. He should have found a better way.

‘After so many years, I wish I could have met him again in better circumstances.’ Lunafreya says it almost offhandedly, and then she laughs, unhappily. ‘How selfish of me. I am only glad that I am here to assist when he needs it.’

There’s something in the words that makes Ignis turn his head towards her, even though the action does nothing but make his head hurt. He doesn’t know what to say, but he wants to hear more.

‘I have healed what I can,’ she says. ‘I have sat with him as he cried, and let him say what little he has to say. I have been left behind by your side at his request. I have waited for him to make a decision. And when he makes it, I will follow it through. He is the King of Light. I am glad I am here.’

It sounds like she’s talking to herself, rather than him. He can’t help but be drawn in to her voice. Ignis says: ‘What do you want?’

Lunafreya grew up a princess and a political prisoner of Niflheim. Of course she knows how to speak — or, when need be, not to speak. She doesn’t say anything for a long time, until eventually admitting: ‘I don’t know.’ Her voice is terrible in its honesty, and she laughs at herself, and her smallness and weakness. ‘But why does that matter when that’s not what I’m for?’

She’s here for Noct, as he is, and Gladio and Prompto are. It doesn’t matter if she wants to be with Noct when she has to be with him.

He wants to search her face, but that is impossible and always will be. He’ll never see Noct again — his beautiful eyes, or the power in his body as he fights, or the softness of him as he sleeps. He’ll never see trees or artwork or the golden colour of cooked pastry. He won’t be able to read any book he wants to, or use a computer, or watch television, or drive. He can’t go wherever he wants to, jump on and off public transport, explore foreign places and see what is around him. He wants all of those things, more than he can bear. He wants his room in his apartment, small but clean and his own. He wants his clothes back. He wants his uncle back. He wants his life back, and what Lunafreya forced him to take is not his life. Not the one he wants.

Lunafreya does not want, and he wants too much and only things he cannot have.

‘I’m sorry,’ Lunafreya says, and it’s all that’s needed to break down the last defence inside him, shatter it with shame and loss and hopelessness. 

‘Please go away,’ Ignis says, and turns away from her, curling in the mess of his bedding that he’d kicked up when he struggled away from her.


	9. Chapter 9

When Ignis woke, the sun was high. His new phone, when he turned it on, told him it was 3:58pm.

At some point Noct had eaten a large amount of what Ignis had brought back, and was now asleep again. Ignis stood, swaying when a head rush caught him, and then went to pick up the food wrappers Noct had left scattered on the floor. They didn’t have a bin, so he stuck them all inside the largest packet, a bag of pork scratchings — he had wanted to get jerky but it was too expensive — and placed that in the corner by the door.

That done, Ignis stood and looked out of the window. He’d slept in far too long. His body still felt mostly asleep, weak, not responding well. His head felt fuzzy. How could he have slept this long? He needed to go back and work. He needed—

Ignis checked his phone again. He had a message. It wasn’t from Sam, the only number he had put into his address book. He opened and read it on reflex, not stopping to think who else it could be from.

_This is Anomalesia, I’m coming to get you, hold on._

Relief hit Ignis, followed immediately by fear. That was Gladio’s alias. Gladio had found them, and was coming. Except, was it truly him? Niflheim had already shown that they were infinitely more powerful than any of them had expected. How could he know that Niflheim’s intelligence didn’t also know this?

He couldn’t say. There was no way of telling.

Ignis wasn’t capable of looking after Noct on his own. He couldn’t even wake up on time. He needed the others, and therefore he needed to take this risk.

‘Noct,’ he said, and knelt down beside Noct, brushing the hair from his eyes. Noct’s face screwed up, but he didn’t move away. ‘Gladio seems to have found us. I can’t say when he’ll arrive, but he will. We just need to survive until then.’

Until then. Gladio would know what to do. And if he had Prompto, too—

They still had to survive until then. And maybe, if he earnt some more money, bought some more of the things they needed, he would not look like such an abject failure in Gladio’s critical eyes.

It was late, but he could still do an hour of work before having to head back. He could buy the hatchet, and blankets, and some food that was more substantial and healthy than empty calorie snacks and fast food. If there was still work to be done. He’d take the empty food packages with him, and move the rest of their food and scented items to another building. He should have done that earlier; if he couldn’t move Noct, he should have moved the food.

The journey in seemed to take longer and longer each day, even though he felt like he was walking harder, faster. He couldn’t afford to look at the time on his phone, which was off again. That Gladio — presumably Gladio — had got his number meant that he had to have contacted the man at the diner, who had taken Ignis’ number from Sam and passed it on.

Too many moving parts, too many places for it to go wrong. No matter. He just had to work with what he had. And maybe, if it was Niflheim, they would only find him and not realise that Noct was also there, hidden, just out of sight. He’d have to be more careful about people seeing where he was coming and going from.

The stocktake was almost complete, but Sam, taking pity on him, gave him the clipboard and pen and told him to finish it off, and then went and sat outside in the evening light. ‘Eat something,’ she told him. ‘Can’t work if you’re dead on your feet. Consider it a gift for letting me take the evening off. No one wants to do stocktake.’

Ignis’ stomach clenched hard at the thought of eating something, while at the same time the desire crawled through his throat like insects. He slipped a packet of garula jerky into his pocket. He could eat it later, maybe.

It was 7pm by the time he was done. The sun was low in the sky, but there was still time to make it back in sunlight if he hurried. The shops were closed, but he had the jerky and Sam had refilled his water. He could come back tomorrow to buy what he needed.

The weapons shop was still open. Late hours for the hunters? There were daggers; Ignis walked past and didn’t look. Noct needed food.

The hunter was back by the warehouses, and he raised his hand and grinned widely at Ignis. ‘Still whoring around?’ he said. ‘Don’t want to leave it too late. Or is it giant daemon dick that sluts like you get off on?’

‘Are you offering me custom,’ Ignis said, and adjusted his bag where it was digging deep into the bone of his shoulders, weighed down by the water jug. ‘Or do you get off on schoolboy level insults?’

He’d stopped walking, though, and the hunter knew it was an invitation. Acceptance. He patted the crotch of his trousers. ‘Baby, you already know there’s no schoolboy here,’ he said, and moved his hand to his pocket. ‘Or here — I just got paid. Took down a pack of voretooth, and now I’m feeling extra charitable. Want to be fucked for 300?’

There was no way that was an acceptable rate, but what could he say? He needed money. Noct needed food. He didn’t need his body.

The hunter took him to one of the houses, presumably designed for hunters coming and going, because it was divided up into individual rooms like a hotel. It smelt like dust and mould, and the wallpaper was dry and cracking, peeling. The hunter’s bag lay on the floor by the end of the bed, where he pushed Ignis and told him to strip.

Ignis placed his bag down and stripped. He’d been naked in front of his peers, friendly or not. He was not ashamed of his body. The hunter’s hands on him, turning him onto his face on the bed, lifting his hips, made revulsion twist through him. His throat tightened, and hollow disgust weighed down his stomach and lungs as the hunter shoved his thumbs into Ignis and spread them wide, stretching him. Ignis swallowed down a grunt of pain; it felt like he was trying to tear Ignis apart rather than ease him open.

‘Got lube?’ the hunter said, and only waited a couple of seconds before continuing. ‘Thought not. Spit it is.’

The sound of him spitting, and the cold wetness on Ignis’ hole, made Ignis flinch forwards. He clenched his jaw and allowed it as the hands spread over his arse, fingers hooking over his hips, and yanked him back.

It was fine. He could manage this. It was just his body. It didn’t matter that it hurt when he was stretched open, he hunter’s cock rammed into him in a way that made him breathless and his head spin. He was too tight. He had to be hurting the hunter, too, but he showed no sign of slowing down or pausing to give Ignis time to adjust. 

The breathlessness didn’t abate. His head continued to spin and the world peeled away, leaving fuzzy nothingness in its wake. Sight and sound all became abstracted and distant. His spine collapsed down, arching his back, making his hips and arse stick up obscenely. He was too cold, trembling, head spinning wildly. Only the bruising grip of the hunter’s hands on his hips kept him upright. It felt like he were puncturing something far too deep inside Ignis, over and over and over—

Ignis opened his eyes. He was flat on the bed, on his back, legs splayed wide, knees bent up towards his chest. The hunter was still thrusting into him, hands on the backs of Ignis’ knees to hold them in place. He was grunting, a harsh exhale with each thrust. Sweat shone on his skin in the harsh fluorescent light.

The quiet thrum in Ignis’ ears was drowning out the rest of the world. Darkness was creeping back into the outskirts of his vision. He felt like he was being smothered. He opened his mouth but his throat had been disconnected from his lungs. Hot and cold waves swept through his body, travelling along the roads of his bones.

The hunter was getting dressed by the side of the bed. He glanced over to Ignis. ‘Wakey-wakey,’ he said, buttoning his jacket and pulling out his wallet from his bag. ‘Just in time. I’m off on a hunt. There’s a few ganymede me and the others are bringing down. Good thing we’re here to keep whores like you safe on dark nights, huh?’

Ignis ignored him, focusing all his attention on sitting up on the side of the bed. He was still too hot, flushed, dizzy with it. He closed his eyes and swallowed hard, trying to ignore the hollow pain in the pit of his belly, and the sharper pain between his legs, and the way he didn’t feel entirely real any more.

‘275 gil,’ the hunter says with an unpleasant smile. ‘We’re splitting the cost of the extra room for the night. Not having some dirty whore on the bed I’m sleeping on, thanks.’

He left before Ignis managed to gather himself to do anything at all, much less object. Without warning Ignis’ stomach clenched, and he stumbled to the bathroom, bracing himself on the sink. He retched, but nothing came up. The cold had gripped him like a dog gripping its prey, and shook him. His knees almost but didn’t quite buckle from underneath him.

275 gil. That was something, at least. It was effectively money for free, so being cheated of a little of it didn’t matter. It’d be enough to buy Noct several days’ worth of food. And Gladio was coming. He’d know what to do. He’d be able to do this properly. 

It was dark outside. Ignis stopped on the doorstep and stared stupidly, because how hadn’t he thought of this? He’d be running the gauntlet of daemons, and they could sneak up on him or form on his path in a way wild animals couldn’t.

Was the weapons shop still open? It might be, but it was his own fault for not realising this. He shouldn’t waste any more time away from Noct. He’d come back and spend the money on food and other supplies in the morning. And Gladio would be arriving soon, too.

The moon was waning, but still bright enough to light his way. He’d bought a light the day before but left it with Noct. It was better to try and travel undetected, anyway, and a weak light would be beacon to every daemon in the vicinity.

He hoped Noct was safe. He hoped he hadn’t done anything stupid, like go out to try and find Ignis once he’d realised he hadn’t returned and it was getting dark. Ignis didn’t think he would, but—

The goblin in front of him appeared almost as surprised to see him as he was it. Ignis had never seen a goblin before; he’d seen images and film, of course, but never a real one. It seemed very small. For a split second he thought it was a child in a costume.

He didn’t have any weapons. Goblins always kept in groups. The goblin leapt for him before he could manage to turn and run, and the force of it knocked him over, cracking his head and the side of his neck against the ground.

Its neck was small, easy to squeeze in just one hand. He could feel the cartilage of its windpipe and oesophagus collapsing under his fingers, its hair catching in his fingernails. It struggled wildly for a second, then turns its sharp hands onto his face.

He pulled it away, but it bit his arm and slipped free from his grasp. He grabbed it with his other hand, trying to haul it away by the throat again, dragging its gaping mouth with protruding, needle teeth, and its bulging, gibbous eyes away from him, but one of its hands had got at his face and its claws were digging holes into the flesh of his cheeks, his eyes, and its mouth—

Ignis got both hands around its neck, pulled and twisted, breaking its spine. Its claws were still caught under his skin; there was blood, and when Ignis shoved the limp, fading body away more blood spilling across his face, blinding him, agony rupturing from inside him. His eyes — when he wiped the blood from them he could feel the flesh of his face was like a split tomato, skin broken open and raw flesh beneath, wet and soft.

He needed to get away from where the rest of the goblins would be. They hadn’t attacked yet, so they couldn’t have noticed him, but Ignis could almost feel their claws and teeth sinking into him, tearing him apart. Staggering to his feet he turned, moving away and back the way he came. He couldn’t tell how far he’d made it before he fell back down to his hands and knees. Noises were coming from his mouth, but he needed to be silent, so he muffled himself with one hand.

Blood was dripping from his face, falling from the tips of his shredded skin, his nose, running onto his hand and spilling down his wrist. The smell and taste of it was overpowering. He needed to get up, but his body was trembling from the exertion of simply not collapsing down onto the road. At any second he expected the other goblins to appear and finish him off, leaving him a ragged corpse in the road for the daylight to find.

Noct. He needed to get back to Noct.

At least Gladio was on his way.

The pain swelled and rocked him, escaping from his mouth from when he couldn’t hold it in, breathy gasps and moans pushing out from between his fingers. Blood bubbled in his nose, creeping up it and into his lungs when he inhaled. 

Should have bought the weapon. Should have left while it was still light. Should have waited in Leide or Insomnia. Should have tried to find others quicker, sooner, better. Should have fought better. Should have done better.

He was lying down on the road. Moving was impossible, his body weighed down, stuck to the ground in the glue of dust and blood. He grasped for an elixir from the armiger but couldn’t reach. Noct. Was Noct safe?

Pain kept him awake. How long until something else found him? A voretooth pack, or other daemons. The dawn and the sun, heat exhaustion, sunstroke. Flies and beetles laying eggs inside his face. The hours crawled over him. Every time he started to drift a wave of fresh pain woke him, shocking him again and again by the intensity of its agony.

His phone. He could call Sam. He could call Gladio, or whoever was posing as Gladio.

He couldn’t find his phone. It had been in his pocket, he was sure, unless it had been knocked out. The goblin could have taken it. The hunter could have taken it. He kept searching for it anyway, pawing at himself, trying not to move his head or neck. It wasn’t there. His fingers were numb, sticky, gritty with sand.

Eventually he gave up. It hurt too much to move. How much longer until he was found?

It was shameful that he had been taken down by a single goblin. He should have done better.

He could hear birdsong. Did that mean it was morning? The world remained stubbornly black, no stars or moon.

It occurred to him that he was blind.

‘Ignis?’

It was Noct. Ignis tried to turn towards him but couldn’t.

‘Ignis!’

There were hands on him, touching him gently. ‘What do I do?’ Noct said, and Ignis couldn’t answer. ‘Specs? _Ignis._ Ignis—’

Ignis’ body didn’t want to respond. He felt a pressure on his face, light at first then becoming unbearable, and he cried out weakly and tried to struggle away. The pressure disappeared. It appeared again under his armpits, dragging him, and Ignis’ head got knocked against the ground. He blacked out, coming to with his body draped across rough ground, and his head feeling like it had been split open, spilling blood and fluid out from between his eyes.

He heard Noct talking, the words as if from very far away.

‘I trusted you!’ Noct was saying, hot and harsh, and the pain in his voice was heartbreaking. ‘You acted like you knew what you’re doing! I thought you could do it, and I should just let you because what did I know — and now look — now look — we should have gone back. We should have stayed and looked for Gladio and Prompto, or Cor, or anyone—’

Ignis didn’t reply. He didn’t think he could. Pain filled up his skull, his tongue, his teeth, settling in his throat and lungs. Noct didn’t say anything more; his voice had worn out, exhausted from his brief outburst, and Ignis listened as he sat beside him and started to cry.


	10. Chapter 10

Perhaps it is good timing, or because it’s how now he’s more healed he is simply awake more often. Or maybe, with Lunafreya’s influence, Noct has deliberately come to Ignis because he knows he’s awake.

‘Noct?’ 

‘Yeah, Ignis?’

Ignis isn’t sure what he wants to say. The emotion in Noct’s voice is difficult to read. If only he could see his face he might know.

‘Are you well?’

‘Uh, yeah. I’m fine. Luna healed me, but I guess I just need rest now.’

Ignis wants to reach for him, but he can’t say how close Noct is, and whether or not Noct wants to be touched. ‘I’m glad,’ he said, trite but earnest.

He wants to say he’s sorry for everything he did wrong, or tried to do but failed. For hurting Noct. For ruining himself. Saying it aloud would be admitting it, and that would be the final seal in making it true.

Noct beats him to it. ‘Specs — _Ignis_ ,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry.’ He says it with such emotion Ignis can’t help but be overwhelmed by it, swept up and carried away. ‘I should have done more. Anything more. I just left you to do everything, and I—’

He breaks off, takes a deep shuddering breath. ‘Luna says you want to die. Or you did.’

Ignis isn’t surprised that she told him; he wonders, though, if she’d known he would confront Ignis with the information. He doesn’t say anything. He wants to hold Noct and tell him he’s wrong to be sorry, and that he hadn’t needed to do more, that it’d been Ignis’ fault — only he’s aware, dimly, that he wouldn’t be believed.

‘I know—’ Noct says, then stops again, and it sounds like he’s about to cry. He takes a few deep breaths, collects himself, but doesn’t continue speaking.

‘Noct,’ Ignis says, ‘what do you want?’

‘What do I want?’ That sets him off, and his voice is probably louder than he means it to be. ‘What the fuck kind of question is that? What do _you_ want?’

Ignis feels he should have anticipated that, but he’s still raw, and talking with Noct is like walking across ice when the water below is deep and the ice appears, at least, thin. 

He doesn’t know how to answer. Anything he can think of to say will be immediately rejected by Noct. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says instead of answering the question. ‘I shouldn’t have… nothing I did, it seems, was of any good to either of us.’

‘That’s bullshit,’ Noct says immediately. ‘You got us out and kept us alive. Luna was saying the whole area is crawling with MTs. There’s no way we could have survived if they knew where we were.’

He sounds impassioned. His voice is slightly hoarse. Ignis doesn’t really believe him, but he recognises the argument as one he will not win. Has Gladio or Prompto talked to him about how they got out and survived?

‘Noct,’ Ignis says. ‘I’m sorry—’

‘No,’ Noct says, interrupting. ‘No, cut the crap, you can’t say that—’

‘Noct, do you still want me?’

For a heartbeat, Noct doesn’t say anything. ‘Yes,’ he then says. ‘Of course. Why — why wouldn’t I?’

‘Even though you have the Lady Lunafreya by your side?’

There’s more silence, and each moment of it hurts. When he does speak, Noct’s voice sounds desperate. ‘Of course I do. You’re Ignis. Of course I want you. What would I do without you?’

‘You love her.’

‘Yeah,’ Noct says. ‘Yeah I do, but I love you, too. Even after everything, whatever you think happened. Of course I fucking still love you.’

He’d known, of course, that Noct loved Lunafreya. He’s loved her since they were children. To hear it from his mouth, though, is more painful than Ignis had thought it would be.

‘I love _you_ ,’ Noct says, and his voice is louder, closer, and the blankets shift by Ignis’ waist. ‘Even though I haven’t shown it, and it’s stupid and unfair, I still do. And you wanted to know what I want? I want both of you. Even if I don’t deserve you, that’s what I want. So tell me to fuck off if you want, but—’

He’s stopped by Ignis’ hand, flung out towards his voice and landing on his hip. He doesn’t have the words, but he grasps at the warm fabric of Noct’s clothes, and Noct grasps him back. His hands grip Ignis’ hand, then his arm and shoulder, and he leans forwards to cover Ignis with his body.

‘Don’t leave,’ Noct says, right by Ignis’ throat, raw and thready. ‘Don’t die. I didn’t do anything because I knew you’d never leave me. You’re Ignis. You’re always there; that’s what you do. That’s why I… I just knew you never would, so I thought I didn’t have to do anything.’

‘I won’t,’ Ignis says, because he knows he will not. ‘Of course I won’t.’

He holds Noct to him, one hand on the back of his head, the other curling around his waist. He’s lost weight, Ignis can tell. He wants to hold Noct tighter but his arms are weak, trembling and straining with the least amount of effort. He wants to feed Noct, but he can’t even boil water any more.

If Noct still wants him then Noct can have him. All of him — whatever’s left of him — Ignis will give it to Noct.

They lie together, and the warm press of Noct’s body against his own, breathing, heart beating, is enough to break Ignis’ heart.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says, because he is. He _should_ have done better. For Noct. He should have. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I know,’ Noct says, breath damp on Ignis’ collar, but the passion has gone out of him. He sounds exhausted. ‘It’s okay.’

For the first time Ignis wonders what his scars look like, and whether Noct can see them from where he’s lying. How much of the damage did Lunafreya heal, if she couldn’t heal his eyes? He wants to touch his face, seek out the scars and ruin of his eyes with his fingertips, but he would need to let go of Noct first, and he can’t do anything to draw attention to his scars in front of Noct regardless.

They lie there, Ignis timing his breaths with the ebb and flow of Noct’s breathing.

‘Is it true that my uncle died?’ he says, and then wishes he hadn’t because it sounds like an afterthought, and his uncle deserves better.

‘—yeah. Yeah, Gladio said — I’m sorry.’

Ignis breathes out, slow, careful. He’d assumed, but he’d hoped all the same. ‘No, I understand,’ he says. ‘We all lost ones close to us.’

‘Prompto’s parents are alive,’ Noct says, then hisses between his teeth. Ignis can picture him wincing in his mind’s eye. ‘Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.’

‘No, I’m glad for him,’ Ignis says, and he tells himself it’s true. He’d never been that close to his uncle in the first place, after all, even though he’d all but raised him. ‘The attacks were focused on the Citadel, then?’

‘Yeah,’ Noct says. ‘There’s been deaths. They still murdered hundreds of innocent people. But it… could have been worse, I guess.’

It doesn’t seem like an appropriate conversation to have while they’re lying here, side by side. ‘I know I won’t be much use,’ Ignis says. ‘I wish to stay with you regardless.’

‘I don’t care,’ Noct says. ‘I want you with me, too.’

He says it with conviction, like he means it. Like he won’t regret dragging a blind, useless man with him wherever he goes. Like he does truly love both Ignis and Lunafreya.

The warmth from his body seeps into Ignis’ and fills him up. His weight is a comfort; his hair prickling Ignis’ skin is unbearably lovely. Ignis adores him and everything about him. He will love him with everything he has left.

‘Then I’ll stay with you,’ Ignis says, and means it. He’ll do his best to keep up, to learn to live blind. For Noct, he can do these things, and even if later he’ll want to have died instead, he’ll live because it’s what Noct wants. He’ll let Lunafreya do whatever she can to heal him, and Lunafreya will, because that’s what Noct wants, too.


	11. Chapter 11

He has a cane, now, but he also is aware that walking with a cane is a skill that needs to be learnt. As it is they’ve been staying in this house in Altissia for over a week now, and Ignis is confident enough of the layout that he finds it easier to move blind, as it were, without the cane, which is always getting caught on things or swinging too high or too low.

Most of the time Ignis spends in his room. There are rooms for all of them, and living areas, and a large and well stocked kitchen that he has ignored, save to get water to drink and pick at the food left for him in the fridge. He walks to the kitchen now, because he’s thirsty and he won’t ask someone to get him a drink, but as he gets closer he realises there are voices inside. It’s Noct and Lunafreya at least, and unlikely to be anyone else since Prompto and Gladio are away, gone to Lestallum to collect Iris, Jared, and Talcott. Noct and Lunafreya sound animated but hushed; Ignis stands outside and waits and listens, because while the sound of the two of them is lovely, he knows his presence will ruin it.

It takes a moment, but as Ignis listens to the sounds of them, he realises they’re cooking. They have to be cooking, he decides. The sounds of clicks and clacks and thumps of utensils and bowls and cookbooks are nostalgically, painfully recognisable.

What are they trying to cook? While before he might have cooked for them all, now they have no competent chefs among them, and food is ordered and brought up to them ready to eat. It is good food, Ignis knows, and he also knows he needs to eat to put on the weight he lost. But his appetite is slow in returning, and the food is foreign, and the simple, undeniable knowledge that he is now useless in the kitchen makes all food turn unpalatable in his mouth.

Perhaps they are bored, and they’re trying out the extremely extensive kitchen that’s been lent to them. It seems likely; while negotiations are ongoing they are also slow, and Niflheim doesn’t want to proceed in any direction other than the one they’d taken to begin with, with brute force. Accordo seems reluctant to let Noct play the political field by himself, and given that they are all refugees in Accordo, Noct is content with not rocking the boat. For now, at least. Gentiana and Lunafreya have been talking, Cor comes and goes as he pleases, and Ignis feels sure that the peace is not going to last.

For now, though, he can afford to stand and listen to Noct and Lunafreya discuss some pressing matter over the pots and pans.

‘Is the ring pan really that necessary?’ Noct is saying, and there’s the loud clatter of pots. ‘Can we ask for one?’

‘I don’t know,’ Lunafreya says, and stifles a noise of frustration when more pans clatter and clang. ‘No, I’m sure there’s one in here. I saw it, I know I did.’

‘It says seven inches,’ Noct adds, sounding supremely dubious. ‘Was it seven inches?’

‘What’s that in centimeters?’

‘Honestly?’ Noct says. ‘No idea. Fifteen? Twenty? Somewhere in between?’

‘Can you look it up?’

‘Tch. Sure, hold on.’

The sound of them is warming, like a blanket, but Ignis’ body is starting to ache from standing still for so long. His hips protest, and he knows he’s going to have to sit down or else risk falling at the slightest bump — and there will inevitably be one, because he is blind. He is weak from starvation and blood loss and infection. When Noct and Lunafreya leave to fight Niflheim, whether politically, as a figurehead, or wielding the strength and will of the gods, Ignis will have no place beside them. He won’t even be able to keep up to have a place behind them, unless that’s somewhere far, far behind.

‘Look,’ Lunafreya says, triumphant. ‘Here!’

‘Seven inches is 17.78 centimeters,’ Noct says. ‘What’s that?’

‘It doesn’t say. Do you have a ruler?’

‘Hold on—’

Ignis realises his danger too late to do anything about it. Noct’s footsteps approach, and the door creaks as it’s opened, and displaced air brushes past Ignis’ face, still tender and raw feeling if not literally so.

Noct stops dead and breaks in sharply. ‘Ignis,’ he says, and then stops. The amusement that had been there deserts his voice, leaving it flattened, hardened. He catches it, tries to soften the next thing he says, but the effect is ruined by the fact that he clearly doesn’t know what the next thing he should say is.

‘I — shit, sorry, I didn’t know you were there — we were just—’

‘Ignis?’ Lunafreya says, presumably now standing in the doorway also. Ignis wishes fervently that he could disappear, or possibly that he had never got up that morning at all.

‘Apologies for loitering,’ he says, and he can’t retreat because that will make his presence at the kitchen illegitimate and suspicious, but he can’t proceed forwards either because that will risk him walking straight into Noct, or Lunafreya, or possibly the door or door frame if he misjudges it badly enough.

‘No, that’s…’ Noct flounders for a second. ‘Did you need something?’

‘Just a glass of water,’ Ignis says, because even if he wants coffee he also wants to be able to lie down and sleep. He wants not to have to live through this humiliation, this stupid farce of a normal life. Learning to be blind is exhausting beyond all measure.

He is glad Noct and Lunafreya are enjoying themselves, and each other’s company. He’s happy for them. But it doesn’t stop their happiness from hurting, and the envy of them and everything they are. He wants what they have. He wants a whole, functioning body. He knows that everything he did he did for Noct’s sake, and that was right and correct, but it doesn’t stop the jealousy so intense it breaks him every night, every time he’s in too much pain to stand, every time he stumbles and trips, every humiliating fumble to pick up his toothbrush, or a comb, or his clothes, because these are the only things left in his domain now. He’s no longer needed behind the wheel, or at the desk, or in the kitchen.

‘You should come in,’ Lunafreya says, and there’s a noise of movement, though he can’t tell what, exactly, it is. ‘If you want.’

He does want — to step into the warmth of the kitchen. To dwell in the presence of their happiness, if not within it.

He’s hesitating, which prompts Noct to reach forwards and grasp him by the wrist. Ignis flinches back in surprise at the contact, and he feels Noct almost let go. Then Noct’s grip tightens again, and Ignis is drawn into the kitchen step by hesitant step.

‘We moved the chairs, careful,’ Noct says, and a hand on Ignis’ waist guides him to the left. The hand is careful but firm; it feels incredibly hot through the thin fabric of Ignis’ shirt, almost burning. When the back of Ignis’ thighs bump against something Ignis reaches back to find the chair properly. He sits.

‘What are you making?’

There an immediate silence. ‘A cake,’ Noct eventually says, guiltily.

‘A chiffon cake,’ Lunafreya adds more firmly. ‘Noctis said you like it, so we thought we’d have a go at making one for you.’

‘ _Luna_ ,’ Noct hisses, betrayed, and the simple pleasure of hearing him ruffled is almost enough to soothe the unhappiness that makes Ignis deeply regret coming into the kitchen at all. Lunafreya has replaced him in even this, and worse, she has done what he failed to do, which is to bring Noct in of his own free will. She has made him happy.

‘There’s no need to,’ Ignis says, and his head is moved towards her because that is too instinctual to avoid, but he knows he is hideous, his face a grotesque map of his and her failures, and it would be kinder to hide it from her. Kinder to just remove himself entirely.

‘Of course, we could have just bought one,’ Lunafreya continues, firm and clear and confident, a natural orator, ‘but we wanted to make one.’

‘Yeah,’ Noct says, everything that she is not, but there’s earnestness in his voice, alongside the misery that hasn’t left since the night Insomnia was taken. ‘We wanted to. For you.’

The force of their togetherness, their presence united somewhere in the blankness in front of him, is too strong. Ignis wants it, wants to be part of it more than anything, and even though he’s alone and always will be alone in the black, empty space of his blindness, the strength of them is enough to fool him into believing he can reach them.

‘Thank you,’ he says, and hopes they think his voice is thick with gratitude and not envy so strong he wants to rage from it.

‘We have — oh, I thought the flavour would be a surprise but I imagine you’ll smell it as soon as we make it,’ Lunafreya says, catching herself and sounding disappointed with her own naivety.

‘So it’s not going to be a surprise,’ Noct says. ‘Whatever.’

‘It doesn’t need to be,’ Ignis says. ‘I’m grateful that you’re doing this for me.’ The insincerity of him falls flat when pushed up against the earnestness and generosity of Noct and Lunafreya. Clearly Noct hears it too, and Lunafreya must as well, because there’s an awkward silence that follows.

‘I need to get the ruler,’ Noct says, and leaves like he’d used to extract himself from unwanted encounters at political events, back before he’d overcome his natural awkwardness with learnt tact.

Lunafreya and Ignis are left in the kitchen. Lunafreya breaks first. ‘I hope you’re not expecting great things,’ she says, light with forced self-deprecation and the urge to fill the silence. ‘I never learnt how to cook, and from what I hear Noctis isn’t too much better. But we have a recipe and it says it’s foolproof, which is something, isn’t it?’

‘I’m sure whatever you make will be delicious.’

Lunafreya laughs, and this time it’s more genuine. ‘Your belief in us is flattering.’

She uses the plural to speak of herself and Noct, like they’re a pair, inseparable. And they have been. They are. She doesn’t flaunt it, except in that she exists and it’s true, and she is now living in the same house as Ignis is.

At least he can’t see them together, but that’s very poor consolation.

‘I’m sorry,’ Lunafreya says, ‘you never got that water. Here, I’ll get it for you.’

There’s the sound of footsteps, the chink of glass against glass, the tap running. ‘Here,’ she says, and Ignis lifts his hand so Lunafreya can touch the glass to his fingers. It takes two hands to grasp it and, after he drinks, two hands to place it down on the table he knows is next to him, but which he still needs to search for and make sure is clear.

Noct returns and he measures the cake pan. ‘It’s 20 centimeters,’ he says. ‘Shit. Do you think it matters?’

Ignis opens his mouth, but is interrupted. ‘No,’ Lunafreya says. ‘I mean, no, Ignis, don’t answer. We’re not children, we can figure this out by ourselves.’

‘That’s right,’ Noct says. ‘We’re doing this for you, so you don’t need to do anything.’

It’s endearing how he’s following Lunafreya’s lead, trying so hard to be good to Ignis. If it weren’t for her he would be falling behind, Ignis thinks, mired down by the weight of his losses and the pressure to step up, to become king. As it is he even has time to make cake for someone he should’ve left behind long ago.

He can’t leave now, so Ignis sits and listens to them as they separate out the eggs into two bowls, having looked up an online how-to first. ‘I’ll beat the egg whites,’ Lunafreya says. ‘Pass the sugar? And you sort out the flour and yolks.’

The whirl of the electric whisk mostly drowns out any other noise — Noct pouring out oil, sifting the flour, whisking in the egg yolks and milk — but Ignis knows how to make chiffon cakes and tries to follow the indistinct noises. He can’t smell any atypical flavours so perhaps they mean to flavour it at the end with a glaze or drizzle.

The electric whisk stops, then starts, then stops again after a few seconds. ‘Does this look done?’ Lunafreya says.

‘Uh, yeah, looks like it,’ Noct says, his own whisk still clacking arrhythmically off the sides of his bowl. ‘Hold on, I think mine’s done too.’

There’s a short pause, then a couple of firm taps and a clatter. Since there’s no follow up to the clatter Ignis supposes it was the whisk in the sink and not on the floor or countertop.

‘And we just fold it in?’ Lunafreya says distractedly, and Ignis imagines she’s double checking the recipe. ‘We add the whites into the yolks a third at a time, mixing in each carefully, to not beat out the air.’

‘Ugh, why’s it so complicated?’

‘Because there’s no baking powder or anything to make it rise,’ Lunafreya says. ‘So the air in the egg white is what makes it fluffy.’

‘What’d happen if we put baking powder in it, then?’

There’s a slight pause before Lunafreya replies, and Ignis thinks she sounds regretful when she says, ‘Let’s not experiment.’

Noct laughs, and it’s not even a real laugh, just a warm snort of amusement and fondness. It’s still more than anything Ignis has given him in a long time. Ignis wants it, but he knows it belongs to Noct and Lunafreya.

‘Okay, so pour it in now, then cover with foil, then put it in the oven. Twenty minutes, then take the foil off and turn it down to 155 degrees for another twenty minutes.’

They follow the instructions, fussing over the placement of the foil. Regardless of the extensive nature of the rest of the kitchen, the oven is apparently not convection. Ignis can’t hear them turn it on, so he assumes it’s preheated.

There’s a single clapping sound. ‘Done,’ Noct says.

‘Save the congratulations for when it’s out and not a disaster,’ Lunafreya says, but there’s laughter in her voice too.

Ignis wishes there were a polite way to extract himself. That the cake meant for him became a joint activity for them stings, regardless of whether he wanted the cake or not. If they’d wanted to do something together they could have had the decency not to drag him into the peripheral and then leave him there. They hadn’t needed to make it out like they were doing it for him when in reality they were doing it for themselves.

‘We can wash up later,’ Noct says, unexpectedly close. How close? Ignis can’t tell exactly. He wants to lean away for fear of bumping up against something in the dark. Instead something comes to him and touches his shoulder. ‘Ignis?’

‘Yes, Noct?’

Noct’s bravado and laughter had all drained away the moment he touched Ignis. Now he’s back to quiet hesitancy. Ignis despises it. He shouldn’t be here. He should have stayed in his room. They should have left him behind.

‘Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine,’ Ignis says, too briskly, because now he has Noct’s — and presumably Lunafreya’s — attention. But what more can he say? He’s stupid, useless, and trapped with the two people he wants to see it least.

Before, Noct may have pushed back against Ignis, telling him that he didn’t believe him. Now he’s voiceless, invisible, connected only by the pressure of his hand on Ignis’ shoulder, and even that is fading.

‘Do you need anything?’ Lunafreya says, and she’s hovering close, too. She sounds uncertain.

Even though he’s drifting in the endless void of his blindness, he feels closed in and claustrophobic. How close are they, exactly? If he stood would he bump into either of them? How can he get them to move away? With Noct he would have pushed him away, moved him with his hands on Noct’s shoulders or waist, except he can’t do that because he cannot find Noct’s shoulders or waist. Reaching forwards, placing his hands on Noct’s body, searching him until he found them, would be unbearable. What if he accidentally touched Lunafreya?

He hasn’t answered Lunafreya’s question. ‘No, but thank you.’

‘Do you want anything?’

What a profoundly stupid question. Of course he wants. He wants a thousand things, but what’s the point of wanting when he can’t have any of it?

‘Specs — Ignis,’ Noct says, and he’s moving, his hand shifting on Ignis’ shoulder. His other hand touches Ignis’ other shoulder, and Ignis reaches out carefully and finds Noct kneeling in front of him, between his legs. He puts his hands on Noct’s head, cradling his skull in his palms, and Noct’s hands slip down to Ignis’ waist. ‘You know I’m really grateful for everything you did, right? And a cake is such a crappy way to show it but I really am. I know it didn’t turn out so great, but maybe if you’d done anything different we’d both be dead somewhere, or captured by Niflheim or something, I don’t know. And maybe it didn’t turn out so well because I was the one who screwed up, and if I’d done anything to help then you wouldn’t have been hurt.’

He sounds like there’s more, but he’s holding it back.

‘It’s _fine_ ,’ Ignis says. ‘We both performed to the best of our abilities.’

‘Like hell,’ Noct says. ‘And — and fuck off if you think that was the best of my abilities. I fucked up bad, and you were the one who paid for it, okay? I can do better. And I will. I swear.’

‘Noct,’ Ignis says as Noct’s hands tighten their grip. ‘That’s not—’

‘It’s not your fault,’ Noct says. ‘And if you want to blame anyone, blame me.’

‘We’re all culpable,’ Lunafreya says. ‘In our own ways, we all failed you. But no one person is to blame, least of all you, Ignis.’

‘I should have done better,’ Ignis says, the words leaving his mouth like a mantra.

‘Yeah?’ When Noct speaks, Ignis can feel the movement of his jaw against his hands. ‘How about I should have done better? How about Gladio and Prompto, who took their sweet time finding us? How about Luna who should have found us sooner and healed you better? What about my fucking dad, who should’ve stopped Niflheim attacking in the first fucking place?’

The accusation is shocking; Ignis feels himself tense up. 

‘It’s true, though, isn’t it?’ Noct says. ‘How did he screw up so bad that we got no warning, the wall failed, the armiger is still gone, just, literally everything that could’ve gone wrong went wrong? And I did even worse—’

‘Noct,’ Ignis says. ‘Please don’t.’

‘Then you don’t,’ Noct says, viciously.

Ignis has nothing to say to that. No one does, apparently; the kitchen falls quiet.

‘I’m sorry,’ Ignis says, though he’s not sure what he’s apologising for. He wants — he doesn’t know what he wants.

‘Yeah,’ Noct says. ‘Same.’

Noct and Lunafreya wash the dishes while the cake cooks, and when the first twenty minutes are up and they’re fussing over taking the foil off, Ignis gets up and leaves.

No one stops him. He makes it to his bedroom, where he finds his desk in the dark and sits there, listening carefully for the sound of his door opening. He searches across the top of the desk to try and discover if any of his things have been moved. There’s the tablet and headphones they’d given him, and a pill case for pain medication, and the phone he’d bought in Cauthess Rest Area; all seem to be where he left them. Inside the drawers is stationery, pens and paper and pads of sticky notes, none of it useful to him, but he feels each item, opening the pen lids and feeling the nibs. How much of a mess has he made on his fingertips?

He feels restless. He can’t hear people in the kitchen from his room, so he has no idea what Lunafreya and Noct are doing.

Does he want to know? Are they back to laughing, or are they somber?

He fills up his pill case. His body is hurting again. He could switch on the tablet for something to listen to, but the motivation for that is lacking. He could find his beginner’s textbook of dot-letters and practice, but there’s no motivation for that either.

The wood of the desk is solid, varnished smooth. It’s cool when Ignis rests his forehead against it. The silence and empty expanse behind him feels overwhelming. He can’t concentrate when it’s right there, pressing up against his back, looming over his shoulders.

In the kitchen, a far away point, an island of reality not connected to his own, there are Noct and Luna and a chiffon cake. There’s sound and touch, capability and happiness he can sit near, if not inside.

He could go, return like a kicked dog, to slink in and hope his presence doesn’t attract undue attention. Or he could return to bed and attempt to sleep. He is sure he will fail in either scenario.

Time crawls over him, and the expanse of nothing gets larger and larger. Ignis gets up and, hands outstretched, finds the door. He goes out into the corridor and walks down it, tracing his hand along the wall beside him.

Noct and Lunafreya are still in the kitchen, but they’re not talking. Had they fallen silent when they heard Ignis coming?

Ignis doesn’t know what to say, so he sits back down on the chair, and while he’s doing that, the timer saves them all from further awkwardness by going off.

Noct — or possibly Lunafreya — takes the cake out of the oven, and Ignis wonders if they know to cool it upside-down so it doesn’t sink. He thinks they might do, since there’s the sound of the cake tin knocking against something hard, possibly ceramic, instead of against the metallic rattle of a cooling rack. The smell of the cake fills up the kitchen.

‘It needs to be cold before we glaze it,’ Lunafreya says, even though from the sounds of it no one is moving to make the glaze. No one replies. Ignis imagines they’re standing there, looking at the cake as it cools.

‘Do you even want it?’ Noct says suddenly, and for a moment Ignis isn’t sure what he’s even talking about. Then he realises: the cake. ‘If you don’t that’s fine. I’m sure someone will take it if you don’t wanna just trash it.’

Ignis pauses, expecting Lunafreya to object, but she doesn’t. The weight of Noct’s question falls directly onto him.

He doesn’t want to eat the cake. He is sure it will be delicious, but regardless, he doesn’t want it. Throwing it away would be heartbreaking.

‘Don’t get rid of it,’ he says. ‘Not after you put all that effort into it.’

‘It’s just a cake. It’s fine, I’ll give it to someone.’

The abrupt carelessness doesn’t match the clear enjoyment they’d taken in baking the cake.

‘No,’ Ignis says, because he doesn’t want someone else to have the cake. It was made by Noct and Lunafreya and they were happy making it. It was made for him.

‘Seriously, if you don’t want it don’t worry. We didn’t make it so we could guilt you into eating.’

‘Nonsense,’ Ignis says, and he pushes himself to his feet. He’s shuffling, reaching out one hand when he reckons he’s approaching the counter on the other side of the kitchen, but he finds it without stumbling.

He doesn’t know where the cake is on the counter. He can’t very well pat down the entire kitchen for it.

‘Where’s the cake?’

‘To your left,’ Lunafreya says from behind him. ‘You’re almost touching it.’

The cake is still warm, if only just, and it needs to be cool before it’s removed from the tin. Ignis pushes it back against the wall. ‘What were you doing for the glaze?’

‘Just orange and mint, nothing special,’ Lunafreya says, in an odd tone of voice that has Ignis pausing, and it takes him a moment to pin it as shyness.

He’s taken aback, and he turns to face her even though he can’t see her. He wishes he could — that he could have a second chance at understanding how she’s feeling, what she means. Instead there’s nothing there, no input. Doubt overlays his thoughts. Maybe he misheard.

Maybe he didn’t.

‘In that case,’ Ignis says, ‘how may I help?’

The glaze is easy, and if it weren’t for dealing with the icing sugar Ignis is reasonably sure he could have done it by himself. Instead they all do it — Lunafreya measures out the sugar, and Noct minces fresh mint, chopping it finely and making the room pungent with its scent. That leaves Ignis to juice the oranges; it’s the easiest task, Ignis knows, but he can’t blame them for it. This way there’s no risk of him failing and losing face, so he really should be thankful. He still struggles, working agonisingly slowly, even when Noct puts the juicer and knife right next to his hand.

He’s done when Lunafreya says, ‘Chop it more than that.’ 

Noct makes a noise of mock disgust. ‘Do I have to?’

‘You don’t,’ Ignis says without thinking. ‘We wouldn’t want it overpoweringly minty, so roughly chopped will do.’

‘ _Ha_ ,’ Noct says, with conviction, and Ignis can almost see his expression, haughty and triumphant. He cannot see it, or Noct at all, and he never will.

Noct bumps into him gently, and Lunafreya laughs; Ignis smiles down at the orange he’s still struggling to juice. Its tart sweetness blends with the scent of the mint, and it smells delicious.


End file.
